Mrs Murphy looked at me steadily, as if understanding that something had changed.

Then she smiled.

‘That would be grand,’ she said. ‘We’ve got time for a nice cup of tea. Sit yourself down.’

I could hear Mrs Murphy making the tea and Radio 2 turned on low coming from the kitchen. There was an old Luther Vandross song playing. ‘Give Me the Reason’. It was strange to be home so early in the day. But it felt good and right. And it felt peaceful. That was the best thing of all. I had a glimpse of a different life.

What would I do now? I had seen that there were private security guards appearing all over London. Some of them had no qualifications beyond a shaven head and big boots, but some of them were serious men – ex-British Army Gurkhas, small and smooth-skinned Nepalese who never raised their voice but who would not be beaten in any physical confrontation unless they were killed. Maybe that was a road I could take. If I did not want to be a real cop any more, then someone might pay me to be a different kind of cop. Right now, I didn’t care what I did.

I just knew that I had had enough.

But the police is what you know, a voice said. And it’s the only thing you know.

Nesha buzzed up to walk the dogs and Mrs Murphy decided that Scout would approve if the whole gang of humans and dogs were waiting for her at the school gates.

So we all walked to the school, Nesha with both the dog leads, proudly demonstrating his dog-handling skills as we passed through the market and Stan and Dasher caught the scent of all that fresh meat, Mrs Murphy smiling to herself as she hummed that old Luther Vandross song. And I felt how far I had travelled from normal life, the life that carried on in all its decency and dignity while I stood on the hard shoulder of a taped-off motorway.

At the school gates there were parents chatting, people who saw each other every day while I was at work, and there were more fathers these days, and then a distant bell rang and the children were streaming out and home, and one face among them shone like the brightest star.

‘Daddy!’ Scout said.

We were not the most physical father and daughter. But she touched my arm and I smoothed Scout’s shining bell of hair and it meant as much to me as any hug. We smiled shyly at each other.

‘You got home from work early,’ she noted, and she took my hand and did not let it go, not even when we waved off Nesha and the dogs as they headed to the park. Scout held my hand all the way back to the loft.