Nico recognised unpacking it as a job invented to keep kids busy but Josie happily unhooked the cellophane, trying to preserve the silver ribbon and began lifting the packets of biscuits and jars of preserves and passing them to her tiny sister to ‘carefully, carefully, carefully, Maria!’ stand them on a tray Nan brought in.

Nan slid the arm without the cast through Nico’s and kept him in the doorway to watch the girls. ‘She didn’t say “don’t tell Nico”,’ she said in her hoarse voice. ‘I think you ought to know what your ex-mother-in-law’s done. She’s a piece of work, by the sounds of it.’

His head whipped round. ‘What? Yes, she is.’ Every muscle tensed.

The wizened skin around Nan’s lips quivered. ‘She’s got our Hannah thinking she’s a tart who’s been leading you astray.’ She blotted her eyes with her sleeve. ‘She called her your “entertainment”.’

Nico swore viciously – in Swedish, so he didn’t have to hold back.

Nan’s voice creaked more than usual. ‘She’s gone away!’

‘Where?’ he demanded.

Nan’s lip quivered. ‘She wouldn’t say.’

On Monday, Nico spent a lot of time thinking. He rang Maria’s case worker, Gloria, who said she was in the area and would like to call in and see how the girls had enjoyed Sweden. The girls were happy to tell her all about it – Josie in entire sentences and Maria in exclamations. ‘Snowman! Wolf!’ Then Nico took Gloria in the kitchen while the girls watched TV in the tiny sitting room and he told her quietly about Loren’s pleas. It was good to open up to someone unbiased yet experienced. Not as good as a heart-to-heart with Hannah, but useful.

She talked through the situation and said, ‘I’ll offer what support I can to promote the best outcome for everybody concerned.’

On Tuesday morning, Loren and Vikki returned to Honeybun.

Loren’s coat looked too big as they trudged up the drive. Vivvi was firing words at her, forehead corrugated by a frown.

Nico had learned from the last unannounced visit and, as the girls were watching Frozen II in the sitting room, he said to them, ‘I’m going to shut this door so if I make a noise in the kitchen it won’t spoil the movie.’

‘’K,’ Josie murmured, evidently on a level of entrancement way beyond removing her gaze from the screen on which Anna and snowman Olaf danced along a railway track while Anna sang about things never changing.

He closed the door before letting his visitors in. ‘I was going to call you,’ he said. ‘I’ve given it a lot of thought and I agree that something has to change.’

A wide smile of satisfaction slid over Vivvi’s face but Loren’s expression barely altered. She looked dull and ill and her hair was stringy. ‘What’s that mean?’ she asked.