Their street wasn’t dissimilar to Dunnington Road, two facing lines of semis built to look identical back in the Fifties, since customized in a hundred different ways. The pairs either side of Gid and Efie’s were unpainted, the pebble-dash around the upper windows aged to the grim brown of mushrooms left too long in the fridge but their house and the one attached, which belonged to Mr T, a widower, were painted white. Efie gardened for him, too, Robin knew, and their son, Mark, who was twelve, had started mowing his lawn last summer. It was a whole world, one whose details she hadn’t realized until now she’d enjoyed hearing about, a super-gentle soap opera where nothing bad ever happened. Apart, of course, from in Gid’s work life. She’d wondered about that a lot over the years, the disparity between the peace here and the bloody mayhem that was their daily stock-in-trade.

She ran through her opening gambit a final time then got out of the car. Like Christine, Efie had planted her front garden with roses but hers were full-size, not the prissy mini ones. Robin rang the bell and waited. From behind the house came voices, the springy thwack of foot meeting ball. If he’d had a whole weekend off, Gid came to work knackered on a Monday, run ragged by Mark and Seth, the younger one.

Movement behind the glass. The door opened to reveal Efie, as she’d guessed it would. ‘Robin!’ She gave her a hug, catching her hoop earring in Robin’s hair as she pulled away again. ‘Come in. This is a surprise – Gid didn’t tell me you were coming. I thought you were in Birmingham.’

‘Yes, just back for the day, tying up a few loose ends.’

‘Come through. I was having a quiet few minutes while they were out there.’ She pointed through the kitchen window to the garden where Gid was indeed playing football with the boys. They watched them for a moment, Gid’s long legs covering the lawn in about four strides, the boys weaving round him like dancers round a maypole, showing off their fancy footwork.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘I didn’t mean to barge in.’

‘No, no, you’re not at all.’ Leaning over the sink, she rapped on the glass and motioned to Gid to come in. ‘How are you, Robin?’ There it was, the grave tone that had started to fill that question in the past six weeks.