A distant shout, male again and then – they all heard it – a scream. Female – a woman. A girl.

Thomas’s eyes stayed locked on hers: Hold steady.

Shouting carried on the wind – barked instructions, words inaudible. Another voice. Then another, male but different, higher. Panicked, panicking. ‘Don’t,’ they heard – and then a single shot.

Silence round the table. A whistle of wind that contained every human sorrow.

‘Turn it off,’ said Dennis. ‘Now. Now, Robin.’

‘No.’ She snatched it up, away from him, and as she did, they heard running feet then a low ‘Shit!’ Maggie’s voice. ‘Rob? Are you there?’

‘Yes. I’m here.’

‘What did you …? I dropped the phone, I …’

‘What’s happening?’ Her voice echoed. ‘What’s happening?’

‘Love – hold on. They’re …’

In the distance, a shouted exchange.

‘Oh, thank god – thank god.’ A long breath. ‘They’ve got her, Rob. She’s all right. She’s all right.’

Chapter Twenty-eight

Thomas drove them to the hospital, Robin and Christine in the back, Dennis next to her in the passenger seat. ‘I’ve never been in a police car before,’ he said, looking at the adapted dashboard.

‘Try not to make a habit of it,’ Thomas said.

The city at night, Dunnington Road dark except for two upstairs windows, the pub on the corner of Stratford Road closed and locked up, car park empty. Through Sparkhill, the sari shops and travel agents were shuttered, light pooling instead outside late-night curry houses and taxi firms. Blue sanitizing lamps shone behind Gamil’s huge plate-glass windows. Robin thought of Valerie, alone in her tiny house.

Her own life lay in pieces around her, everything she’d worked for, and she didn’t give a rat’s arse. She felt ecstatic, other-worldly. Intensely, joyously alive.

They’d taken Lennie to A&E to be checked over and when they arrived, she was sitting up in bed, waiting. She saw Robin rounding the corner and started to get up, flinging the blankets off. A nurse ordered her back in. Robin squeezed her until her arms ached, all the words she’d wanted to say gone. ‘I love you,’ she managed eventually, ‘so much, and I’m so sorry.’

‘It’s not your fault.’

‘It is. It is.’

‘No, it was my fault. I should have known that you wouldn’t change pick-up plans without telling me.’

‘Lennie, come on …’

‘But when I saw her, Ana, Peter’s babysitter … She told me that we were going to see him, that you were going to meet us there. Mum, I’m so sorry.’

‘Don’t – no. None of this is your fault, Lennie, none of it. Please never, never think that.’