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Chapters (86)
  1. Title Page
  2. CONTENTS
  3. Love
  4. Before
  5. One
  6. ONE
  7. Two
  8. TWO
  9. Three
  10. THREE
  11. Four
  12. FOUR
  13. Five
  14. FIVE
  15. Six
  16. SIX
  17. Seven
  18. SEVEN
  19. Eight
  20. EIGHT
  21. Nine
  22. NINE
  23. Ten
  24. TEN
  25. Eleven
  26. ELEVEN
  27. After
  28. One
  29. ONE
  30. Two
  31. TWO
  32. Three
  33. THREE
  34. Four
  35. FOUR
  36. Five
  37. FIVE
  38. Six
  39. SIX
  40. Seven
  41. SEVEN
  42. Eight
  43. EIGHT
  44. Nine
  45. NINE
  46. Ten
  47. TEN
  48. Eleven
  49. ELEVEN
  50. Twelve
  51. TWELVE
  52. Thirteen
  53. THIRTEEN
  54. Fourteen
  55. FOURTEEN
  56. Fifteen
  57. FIFTEEN
  58. Sixteen
  59. SIXTEEN
  60. Seventeen
  61. SEVENTEEN
  62. Eighteen
  63. EIGHTEEN
  64. Nineteen
  65. NINETEEN
  66. Twenty
  67. TWENTY
  68. Twenty-One
  69. TWENTY-ONE
  70. Twenty-Two
  71. TWENTY-TWO
  72. Twenty-Three
  73. TWENTY-THREE
  74. Twenty-Four
  75. TWENTY-FOUR
  76. Twenty-Five
  77. TWENTY-FIVE
  78. Twenty-Six
  79. TWENTY-SIX
  80. Twenty-Seven
  81. TWENTY-SEVEN
  82. Twenty-Eight
  83. TWENTY-EIGHT
  84. Eleven Months Later
  85. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  86. Copyright

I ignore her, panic pinching at me as I step back and open the letterbox. ‘Mum? Dad? Rosh?’

‘Ash, stop.’ Dev hisses. ‘You can’t let anyone hear you. It’s dangerous.’

Dangerous?

And my mother says that I’m melodramatic?

‘They must be asleep,’ I say, more to myself than to Dev.

Charming, I think, banging my fist against the door, this time. I know I have no right to be put out, but I’m glad to see that they’re so concerned about me that they’ve fallen a-bloody-sleep.

Nothing.

The panic distils into something sharper. I feel the prickle of it across my scalp again as I realise that there’s no way my parents would go to bed and leave the kitchen light on. My father always does a circuit of the flat before he does, checking that all the windows and doors are locked and the lights are off. He’s always been militant about it, but after Grenfell, he’s even worse, the microwave permanently flashing 00:00 from where he turns it off every night.

The kitchen window is close enough that I only need to take a step to the right to look through it and yes, the light is definitely on and there are three mugs lined up by the kettle, a tea bag in each.

Maybe they’ve gone looking for me. My mother knows that I was on the bus so unless I was lying – which I wasn’t – I got off at Haybourne Road. Maybe they’re retracing my steps. Is Rosh with them, her coat buttoned-up over her Totoro pyjamas? I turn and look out across the estate and when I see the haze of blue lights in the distance, I remember that my mother asked me to get paracetamol so she knows that I went to the mini-mart. But if she knows that I went to the mini-mart and they go there to check, they’ll see the car and if they see the car . . .

Then I’m running. I hear Dev call after me, but I’m gone, along the gangway and back towards the stairs, one hand on the railing and the other palming the wall so I don’t fall. All I can think about is how scared they must be and I have to find them.

I have to let them know that I’m OK.

When I get to the ground floor, I fly out of the stairwell door and out, out, past the lifts to the door. I punch the green button with my fist and push, but as soon as the door opens and I’m out, I run straight into someone. I jump back, holding up my hands, ready to apologise, when I see who it is and stop.

‘Going somewhere?’ Esen asks with a slow smile.

Four

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FOUR

‘Oh, Ess. Thank God,’ I hear Dev say and look back as she runs out the door.