‘Why are you arguing again?’ Jamie came in with a noisy Batman on a bike.

‘We’re not. Turn that off,’ Ali snapped.

Max pulled a face at him to let him know that she meant business. Jamie laughed.

‘What’s so funny, laughing behind my back?’

‘We’re not, don’t be so paranoid.’ Max turned the toy upside down and switched it off.

‘You haven’t answered my question.’ She pointed the knife at Max.

‘Mum, when’s dinner? I’m starving?’ Jamie asked.

‘Give him a biscuit,’ Ali said.

‘What, before dinner? Here, have an apple, Jamie.’ Max grabbed one from the bowl and pretended to drop it.

Jamie giggled. ‘Can you cut it up?’

‘Please, say please, Jamie,’ Max said.

‘Please, Daddy.’

‘That’s better.’ Max smiled at him and chopped the apple in quarters. Jamie took it in the living room. ‘Why are you letting him eat rubbish? Then you complain he doesn’t eat his dinner.’

‘One won’t hurt. Anyway, you answer my question.’

‘You know the answer. We talked about this at the start.’

‘Do I, Adam? Do I?’ She was pointing the knife at him again. ‘Sometimes I don’t know you at all. You’re away so often, we hardly see you. Perhaps I should have listened to Dad.’

Max stared at her. She may as well have spat in his face. If that’s what she really thought, maybe she’d made his decision for him. He finished the Guinness and walked out.

Chapter Fifty-Five

Max: July 2019

Max climbed in the front of the minicab while Maddy settled the girls in the back seats. It was going to be a long train journey to London, she told them. He checked round the house one last time. It was strangely quiet without the dogs barking and the children laughing and shouting. He’d dropped the dogs off at the kennels that morning. The only sounds remaining were the fridge and the ticking of the various clocks. He’d grown to love this house, but it wasn’t a home without the four of them in it.