Catching movement in his mirrors, he turned to see Pax’s little boy standing by the yellow motorbike, carrying an oversized cuddly rabbit and a toy steam engine. Stocky, round-cheeked and glossily brunette, he took after his father. Yet it was his mother’s haunted, soulful eyes that peered out from beneath the heavy fringe. Out of sight, Mack’s voice shouted and raged, Pax’s urgent attempts to quieten him unheeded.

Luca watched as the boy set down his toys and picked up a handful of gravel, pushing it into the exhaust of the big bike, followed by another, then a third. The fourth handful was hurled at the shiny yellow paintwork. As he turned for a fifth, he caught sight of Luca watching him and promptly disappeared.

Luca’s phone rang again. It was Ronnie, the line so bad it sounded as though she was grinding coffee. ‘Where in hell are you? I’ve been shouting my head off on the yard, didn’t you hear?’

‘I’ll be there in a minute,’ he promised as the coffee grinder scattered its contents down the line, her response inaudible.

At last Pax wrenched the back door open, helping Kes into his booster seat, her tone predictably hypnotic with soothing reassurances. ‘Now, have we got everything? You have Rab the rabbit, yes? Right. Remember Luca, Granny’s stud manager? Say hello!’

The boy said nothing, staring fixedly at Luca’s hat.

She buckled up her seatbelt beside Luca, lowering her voice ‘Sorry you had to wait so long. Hide your face and drive.’

As they headed back to the stud, Pax got out her phone and fired off several messages, reading through her inbox, not noticing that the car’s intelligent dash screen was keeping tabs, eagerly offering to read aloud an incoming email from Helen Beadle, Solicitor. Another message – Mack Mob – made her grit her teeth, hand and phone banging back into her lap, face turned to the window as she took a couple of deep breaths.

After a pause, she addressed Kes brightly. ‘Daddy’s had a think and changed his mind about you trying the new school next week after all, which is good, isn’t it?’

‘He said it was a rubbish school.’

‘It’s small and fun.’

‘Oliver doesn’t want me to go to a rubbish school.’

‘Let’s not talk about Oliver.’

‘Oliver says—’

‘I said no talk of Oliver!’

Luca turned in surprise at her sudden sharpness. But she was already smooth-talking again, reassuring. ‘This isn’t about Oliver, darling, this is about Kes.’

‘I don’t want to go.’

‘You have to go to school, Kes.’

‘Don’t!’

‘We can walk there from Gronny’s house, with Knott.’

He clung to the puppy beside him. Big ploppy tears edged onto his lower lashes. ‘Daddy didn’t say goodbye.’

She reached round to grip his hand, her phone slipping from her knee into the brake well. ‘He sends lots of love and says he’s sorry he shouted and that he didn’t give you a big hug, but he’ll give you twice as many hugs when he sees you to make up for it.’