Joe went to say something else, but Leanne rolled her eyes at him. He didn’t have nieces or nephews, so had no clue how to speak to kids. Leanne had four, although it was sometimes easy to forget there was life beyond Sedgefield town limits. She would go back home for Christmas this year. She couldn’t face another on her own, or the stress of making up a story of spending the day with friends to stop her mum fretting.

‘My mum likes to know where I am all of the time,’ Amelia said to Leanne.

‘In that case, you should make sure it’s a brand-new one. Better reliability,’ Leanne said, arching an eyebrow.

‘Good idea!’

‘Now we’ve sorted you out, I need to work on my list,’ Leanne said casually as she looked down at the catalogue.

‘Do they have phones in there?’ Amelia said, squeezing next to Leanne on the opposite side to Joe so the three were lined up in front of the low table.

‘I think I’d prefer jewellery.’

As she spoke, Leanne slid her phone towards Joe as if she were moving it out of the way. At the same time, she gave him a nudge with her elbow and he picked it up. Leanne checked he was opening the voice recorder app before carefully opening the catalogue a couple of pages before the one she had earmarked.

‘That’s nice,’ Amelia said, pointing out a gold bracelet encrusted with cubic zirconia.

Leanne turned the page. ‘A necklace would be better. I’d wear it more often.’

‘How about that one?’ Joe said. He had leant forward with Leanne’s phone in his hand and pointed at a Hello Kitty pendant.

Amelia pulled a face. ‘Whatever your girlfriend sees in you, it can’t be your taste.’

Leanne heard the sharp intake of breath and felt the same stabbing pain she knew had cut into Joe’s heart. She swallowed and said, ‘Joe was and always will be, the love of her life.’

Amelia made a retching sound, but it was the way Joe pressed his shoulder against Leanne’s that made Leanne smile. ‘Right, where were we?’

Watching Amelia out of the corner of her eye, Leanne turned to the page with the folded-down corner. She waited a moment, but there was no gasp, no recoiling in shock. Amelia continued to smile and her eyes remained bright. There was nothing in her expression to suggest that even the tiniest memory had been triggered.