On the Sunday afternoon, on a still, balmy day, Katie was getting ready to take Michael out to his favourite place: Handsworth Park. He loved to be able to run freely in the wide-open space. But as she was squatting down to help him put his shoes on, Katie heard voices downstairs. There was something different about them that caught her attention.

‘Sssh, Mikey – listen!’ She held up her finger to stop her son’s chatter. Eyes wide, he listened with her. There were male voices down in the hall, interspersed with Sybil’s gruff tones.

‘Stay there,’ Katie instructed Michael. She crept over and opened the door. The voices floated up more loudly, though still muffled. There were two men, both foreign, and she could barely make out anything they said. They sounded polite and rather earnest. Then she heard Sybil say, ‘There’s a gentleman in the room next door, a Mr Jenkins – he’s quiet and hard-working. And up in the attic is Mrs O’Neill, a young widow with a little boy. She’s a very nice, reserved person and the child is quiet. You won’t be disturbed.’

One of them asked a question, in a deep, bassoonlike voice that fascinated Katie. She had never heard a voice quite like it before. They were clearly struggling to understand everything.

‘Yes,’ Sybil went on. ‘It’s one room only – but it is large, so if the two of you are wanting to share for the time being . . . Why don’t you come up and see?’

As the sound of footsteps advanced up the stairs Katie quickly shut the door. When it was clear that the three of them were inside the room below, she took Michael’s hand and led him speedily downstairs and out into the sunshine, wondering who the prospective new lodgers might be.

Sometimes she found the weekends hung heavy and she felt lonely. She loved Michael with a passion, he was her everything, but even so, the hours spent in just the company of a four-year-old could seem very long. Last weekend she had been to see the Millers. She didn’t like to call on Maudie at the weekend when her husband was at home as it felt like an intrusion, so she made the best of it, spending a bit of time with Sybil and sometimes chatting to other young mothers in the park.

She had bought Michael a little blow-up ball with bright-coloured stripes around it and they played catch, Katie waiting patiently for his clumsy catches and throws. Then they kicked it to each other for a bit. Another little boy came and joined in and Katie exchanged a few words with his mother, a blonde woman with a rounded figure and friendly manner.

‘Nice to see some sun, isn’t it?’ the woman said, eyeing Katie’s summer dress enviously. ‘That’s nice – did you make it yourself?’

The dress was fitting at the top, with a fuller skirt, in a narrow navy-and-white stripe.