She would ring her later, she told herself as she crossed the bridge before Chalk Farm Road and headed on to the canal. Walking west towards the zoo, she lifted her mind away from the towpath and the couples vying for space with cyclists, away from the weeping willow and the lawns extending down to the water where colourful boats pushed out plumes of smoke. Slowly, she allowed herself to think through Madeleine’s offer of a new role on her return from maternity leave.

‘I’m working on an ongoing project, coordinating efforts between different departments who work with victims of human trafficking from Vietnam, tackling the networks that facilitate the trafficking …’ she had explained. ‘The victims tend to end up in in nail bars, fruit-picking, sex work … I’m looking to bring someone in from the existing team in London to help tee up efforts here that at the moment are being made almost in isolation, with the objective that if we work unilaterally we can get the best results. A theory that one might have assumed would be par for the course in an organisation such as ours, unless, like us, you work for it …’

Tom was running a bath by the time Gabriela arrived home, just after six, a couple of parcels in her bag filled with gifts for the kids, and a compendium of modernist design for Tom which she suddenly panicked she might have bought for him the year before. It was only a fortnight until Christmas and she’d barely had a moment to think about presents, let alone putting up a tree, operating on the premise that anything that could present a physical hazard if tugged at would be instantly destroyed by Callum, the Human Detonator as Tom had affectionately renamed him.

‘How was lunch?’ Tom called out from the bathroom when he heard her feet on the stairs.

‘It was good,’ she said joining him, her eyes shining. ‘And guess what?’ She felt an energy rush when she considered it, unlike anything she had felt in years.

‘I’ve been headhunted for a new role— Hello, my darlings …’

She leaned in to kiss her children on their heads.

‘No way?’ Tom looked as happy as she felt, his whole face lighting up to reflect hers. ‘That’s brilliant!’

The sincerity of his expression was touching, and she stopped to look at him for a moment, wondering how much she should tell him, before turning to pick up Callum from where he was propped in a bath-chair next to his sister, wrapping him in a towel and pulling him onto her knee as she perched at the edge of the toilet seat, for want of anywhere else to sit.

‘So, what is it? Actually, look, I’ll get Sadie out of the bath … Come on, Princess. And then I’m going to make us a drink and you can tell me all about it.’