I redraw the maps on paper, using code words for the names of places and marking in South as North. I make copies for both of us. We’ve got an old compass that belonged to Dean’s granddad. I don’t know how to use it but I’ll figure it out. I know how to use the sun.

It’s hard to leave all of Cara’s baby things, but if we hang on to the past we lose the future. Nothing to keep them for anyway: no chance of having another one now. I don’t want anyone else to have them, so I burn them in a metal waste bin on the balcony, one box at a time, one Sunday afternoon.

I tell our neighbours on both sides and down the walkway that we’ll be gone for the summer. Dean tells his boss that we might not be back.

We’re lucky the weather’s still cool when we leave in June. No one will comment on our anoraks. We dress as holidaymakers, in light hiking gear, Dean in shorts.

At our local shop I use some more of next month’s tokens for picnic food. Some of it will keep for another day – and the tokens are no good to us now. I tell the shopkeeper we’re away for the summer. He knows us. ‘Sister’s got an allotment!’ I say. And ‘Dean’s got a holiday job!’

The last thing I do is tell the clinic we’ll be on holiday when the check is due – gone for the whole summer. No, we don’t have time to reschedule: we’re leaving today. The receptionist huffs with frustration, especially when I say I don’t know exactly when we’ll be back.

‘She’s hitting all her milestones…’ I say.

‘That’s not the point!’ she snaps, and huffs a bit more as she types something. ‘Just call for an appointment as soon as you’re home,’ she says. ‘I’ll make a note to contact you in September, just in case.’

My heart gives a little leap.

I know that if they want to find us they will. I just have to hope that they don’t care enough. We’re nothing valuable to them – at least, they don’t know that we are.

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