She sat on the loo while he sat in the bath, neither of them moving. She’d never washed a child before. She wasn’t sure about any of it. She offered him a sponge. “Will you wash your face?” It wasn’t his face that needed washing. The water was slightly brown, and bits floated in it. “You’d better stand up.” He did as he was told. She rubbed a clean flannel over his body and squeezed the sponge over the crevices she didn’t know how to touch. “You’d better get out again.” No point in sitting down in that water. He let her lift him onto the floor and wrap the towel around him again.

She used to hear the children squeal at bath time. From behind the bathroom door at Cherry Trees came peals of laughter and squawking and splashing. Ian sat quietly on the floor as she dressed him, standing when he was asked, lifting this leg and that arm, popping his head through a jumper, saying nothing at all.

She tucked him up in bed. As far as she was concerned he could stay there until Joan came. He looked exhausted, and it was obvious neither of them were going to eat until this was over. Anyway, she needed to be near the sitting-room window – its view of the street was too good. They’d be here any minute. It was a wonder they hadn’t come last night. She pulled her chair up and got out her embroidery.

An hour later the streets were as noisy and silent as ever. No screeching tyres had come tearing into Evelyn Gardens, no siren wail of the police to make everyone stare, no hammering on the door. She looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. Almost midday, almost luncheon, an entire night followed by an entire morning – and nothing. Not a peep. It came to her in inches, the feeling she remembered from the early months at Didlington: the realising, too late, that she was waiting, and then having nothing to do but wait. Where were they? Why hadn’t they come? Didn’t they care after all? Was it all going to be much simpler, a matter of forgiveness and getting on? Had she misunderstood completely?