‘Where’s Maria?’ he demanded, heart giving a giant leap that Loren should be out here on her own, hair greasy, tears trickling from her chin.

She wiped her face on her wrist. ‘She’s OK. Watching TV.’

Maria his immediate concern, Nico took the key Loren clutched, slipped past and ran upstairs. In the flat he found Maria sitting on the floor of the lounge, watching Peppa Pig with tear-stained cheeks.

When she saw him she jumped up. ‘Juice, Mydad?’

He swung her into his arms. ‘Coming right up.’ She drank two beakers full while he rocked her absently. She smelled stale and was fully dressed in grubby clothes so had probably slept in them. The thirst she was demonstrating, gulping and gasping as she drank, was that big red flag again, waving in his face, not to be ignored. When she was finally sated he wasted no time but went to her room. The bag he’d returned on Tuesday was on the end of her bed, still packed with most of the clean clothes he’d sent back, so he swung it over his shoulder and located her coat on the hall floor. As he threaded her into it, Maria beamed at him trustingly, making him ashamed of his earlier irritation at Loren’s call. ‘Shall we go see Josie?’ he suggested.

Maria clapped her hands. ‘Yes! Yozee.’

Loren came back into the flat, hovering, eyes red and swollen. The confines of the hall made it obvious that she once again smelled of alcohol. He paused. Here was someone else who needed help but he wasn’t superman and he wasn’t a saint. He could only help her indirectly. ‘I’m going to call your mum, OK?’ he said gently.

She managed a ghostly smile. ‘I’ll be OK. Just can’t manage the parenting stuff right now.’

Not by any stretch of the imagination was Loren ‘OK’. ‘Grab some sleep,’ he suggested. ‘And how about a spare key?’

She found one in a drawer and he left, grappling with Maria, her buggy and her car seat. She barely looked at her mother.

At home, Emelie met him in the hall. ‘Josie’s in the shower,’ she said, ‘Hiya, Maria!’ Then, to Nico, ‘What’s going on?’ Her eyes were soft with pity as she took Maria and helped her out of her coat, saying, ‘I bet you want breakfast, hey?’

‘Yes, beckfast,’ Maria agreed, nodding hard.

‘Thanks.’ Nico whispered the bones of the situation to Emelie, adding, ‘I have to call Vivvi.’

Emelie moved towards the kitchen, Maria trotting beside her. ‘I’ll make breakfast for the girls. And some for you for when you come off the phone,’ she added, without looking at him.

Nico nodded, remembering his empty stomach and wondering if Emelie’s comment meant he was looking too thin again. He retreated to the relative privacy of his bedroom to make the call.