‘I’ll get in my ’jamas then turn out the big light and leave the lamp. Maria doesn’t like full dark,’ Josie whispered, suddenly older than her years as she pulled her pyjamas and dressing gown off the hook on the door.

Nico gave her a hug. ‘I’ll make us hot chocolate.’ It would be too much to expect Josie to go straight to sleep, though it was past her usual bedtime. He was pouring the hot milk onto the drinking chocolate when she reappeared, her purple fleece dressing gown dotted with crescent moons.

She pasted on a bright smile and began to chatter. But the words wavered on her lips and suddenly she was crying instead. He shoved the milk further onto the worktop and caught her against him, holding her tightly, murmuring, ‘It’s OK, sweetheart. It’s OK,’ even though he knew a drunken mum and a neglected baby sister couldn’t be an OK thing for an eight-year-old to see.

All he could do was cuddle up on the sofa and talk about what had happened, learning in dribs and drabs, shrugs and mutters, that Mummy had ‘smelled funny’ and Loren had seen her ‘taking a long nap on the sofa’ before. ‘Two times me and Maria got up in the morning and Mum was asleep on the sofa.’

He stroked her hair, cold inside as he acknowledged that Loren must have waited until the girls had gone to bed then drunk herself insensible. ‘Maybe Mum hasn’t been feeling well. I’ll talk to her about trying not to upset you or Maria in future.’

‘’K.’ Josie buried her face in her mug of chocolate and he felt grieved for her jumble of emotions and loyalties. It was nearly ten by the time she’d unwound enough to go to bed, tiptoeing around Maria, though the toddler slept as if no more than a dragon’s roar would wake her. Nico left her listening to a Roald Dahl audiobook and returned downstairs, tidying the kitchen and lounge with automatic movements, one eye on the clock. When Josie had been in bed for fifteen minutes without coming down he decided she was sufficiently settled for him to call Loren’s parents in Reading.

Vivvi and Redfern occasionally had Josie to stay or took her out for a day. To Nico they were polite but chilly. It was as if, he mused as he listened to the ringtone, he’d been the one to let down Loren. Maybe he had. Maybe another man could have supported her through her postnatal depression better or stopped the drinking.

‘Hi,’ he said, when his ex-mother-in-law answered, her voice surprised and apprehensive at the unscheduled call. He decided to jump straight in. ‘Sorry to call so late. I have to discuss something with you and I had to wait for Josie to go to bed.’