When they got home, Max sent the girls indoors while he wheeled their bikes into the garage. Once he’d locked the door, he did his usual check for messages on his silenced mobile phone. Eight missed calls, all from Ali. What the hell? Was Jamie all right? This was their third week in the new house. He wasn’t due to go back there for two days. He hurried inside and put the leads on the dogs.

The girls were already sitting with Maddy, drinking hot chocolate and watching a TV adaptation of Jane Eyre.

‘I’ll just take them for a quick one,’ he said to Maddy, pecking her cheek.

‘What about your drink?’

‘It’ll be too hot for me. Can you cover it and I’ll have it when I come back?’

He crept out, closing the door quietly behind him. The daylight was fading fast. Perhaps the heating wasn’t working, or they’d had a power cut. But would she call him repeatedly for that?

As soon as he reached the field up from Uxbridge Common, he called Ali’s number.

‘Hello?’

Silence.

‘Where’ve you been?’ Her voice sounded broken and distant.

‘What’s wrong?’ Max stopped mid-stride. He automatically unclipped the dogs’ leads.

‘Jamie’s fallen out of that bloody apple tree.’ Her words came in sobs.

Poppy and Daisy ran around him in circles as flashes of white in the near darkness.

‘What’s he doing up a tree at this time of year?’ Stupid, stupid thing to say. Shit, Jamie!

‘Playing, of course. You’re the one who said he watches too much TV.’

Max wiped his brow with the back of his hand.

‘He’s unconscious, Adam. Please hurry up. I have to go in the ambulance now.’

‘I can’t,’ he said, but the line cut off. He stared at the phone, hand trembling. Had she heard him? He couldn’t see where the dogs had gone. He called out to them. A flock of birds rose up from a cluster of trees, silhouettes against the clear moonlit sky. He called the dogs again and crouched down as they bounded up to him licking his face and hands while he struggled to fasten their leads.

As soon as he reached home, he told Maddy that John had phoned and asked him to check on a job, ready for the morning. He said he probably wouldn’t be back until late.

An hour into the seventy-mile journey, his legs began to stiffen with shock and, soon, he could hardly feel his feet. At the next lay-by, he pulled over by a truckers’ food van. He was trembling all over even though the heating was on full blast. He opened the van door and swung his legs round, but his shoes felt like bricks on his numb feet. He tried stamping the life back into them then walked like a robot towards the aroma of animal fat.