‘Should be over on that shelf. That’s it – that big scrapbook.’ I picked up a red cardboard book like I’d had in my childhood to record my holidays, and flicked open the first page. I gasped in shock.

There were family photos here, family photos of me and Gar and my mother. Only wherever I should have been, my face had been cut out.

‘Dad,’ I said urgently, ‘can you come and collect Gar?’

‘What?’ He sounded confused. ‘Why?’

‘I can’t explain now. It’s just – I’ve got to go to Pendarlin.’

‘Why?’

‘Please, Dad. I just do. I’m worried someone strange has been visiting Gar – and Susan’s on holiday. Can you just have her for the weekend?’

‘Really, Mag, you’re making me nervous. I –’

‘I know what you’re thinking but I’m fine, honestly. I’d take her down to Cornwall, but I don’t think she’s fit enough to travel that far.’

‘Maggie –’

‘Please, Dad. Just for the weekend. I’ll be back on Monday, I swear. It’s not like the summer, honestly.’

‘But why do you need to go so badly? Why now? What about work?’

‘I’ve – I’ve resigned,’ I confessed in a small voice.

‘I see.’ There was a short silence, then a deep sigh. ‘Well, I can’t say I’m altogether surprised.’

‘And I just – I need to get out of London. I just – I really need some space to clear my head. Please.’ I heard my voice crack slightly.

Another sigh. ‘Well, if it’s really that important to you, Mag, then –’

I nearly cried with relief. ‘You’re a star, Dad, an absolute star.’

‘But when you come back, Maggie, we need to sit down and talk properly, okay? I’m worried about you.’

‘Okay.’ I was sheepish. ‘We will. I promise.’

After I’d gone back to Greenwich to collect Digby from my father’s – where Jenny had him practically chained to the kitchen table – and listened patiently to her lecture about looking after myself, and eating properly and driving carefully, and that my dad would really like me back on Monday, and after I’d hugged her tight for a moment, clinging on a bit like I was five, I sat in the car in the dark outside the house. The dog panted damp hot breaths down my neck, impatient to be off.

‘Looks like it’s just you and me, buster.’ I started the car, thinking wistfully of Seb and last weekend and a chance for happiness already lost. Then I stamped the memory down and set off across London for the motorway. The sky was the twilight-stained blue-orange of a winter city filled with too much light, busy for a Thursday night, the streets crammed with horns and sirens and atrocious driving.