She realised these thoughts weren’t calming and tried to focus on something else, but at that moment there was nothing else. She tried some deep breathing and that did help.

Then she heard what she’d been dreading: slamming car doors and raised voices. She stepped behind a tree, hoping she was hidden, and heard a car drive away at speed, shooting past the tree where she was sheltering. Sebastian always set off before he thought where he was going, before he’d done up his seatbelt, and, latterly, before he’d put on his glasses. Now, he’d have been better off looking for her on foot, but that wasn’t his way. Thank goodness.

Although she was anxious lest the cab would arrive and the driver not be able to find her, she stayed where she was. It was possible that Martin would also go in search of his mother.

There was the sound of a second car but as far as she could tell it was going in the opposite direction. So Sebastian and Martin had both gone off in their fast cars, looking for a woman who wasn’t exactly a speed-walker.

There was a little park not far away from Martin and Cressida’s house. Gilly had spent a lot of time in it years ago when Ismene was a toddler.

Martin would know about this park but Sebastian wouldn’t. She made her way to it. If Martin found her it would be OK. Just as long as Sebastian didn’t. The thought of being alone with him in a lonely place in the evening was not pleasant. She wished Helena wasn’t so far away, somewhere in the hills above the Wye Valley.

She had time to wish she’d been wearing her Fitbit and that she hadn’t fallen on the wine in quite such a desperate way before she had a text from her cab driver asking where she was. She told him about the park and within a very few minutes he was there and she was being driven back to Fairacres at speed. She wondered when her heart would catch up with her brain and stop beating so fast.

As the cab approached the Fairacres drive, Gilly saw William’s car parked in front of the house and then William himself, waiting by the front door. She thrust a couple of notes into the cab driver’s hands, ignoring his protest that it was too much money, and got out of the cab and ran towards him and into his arms. ‘Oh, William! How lovely to see you! What are you doing here?’

‘Your weird text told me something was wrong. I didn’t know where your son lives so I came here. What’s up?’ He held her and stroked her back and her hair, murmuring words of comfort.

‘Let’s go in the house and I’ll tell you.’