That evening, after I had read Flora a story, I told her that I had to go to some meetings the next day, and that she was going to stay with Nicholas, that he was going to take her to look for foxes in the woods. She looked at me anxiously.

‘I want to go with you,’ she said.

I put my arms around her and stroked her hair and eventually she fell asleep. I slammed the door closed on the panic that had risen up in me; the fear that I might lose her again.

Driving to Surrey the next day I thought about Chloe’s parents. Lucian had told me she was estranged from them, of course, that she refused to speak about it. These people hadn’t even known Flora existed. They had never met her. How could they assert any rights over her?

The Tates’ house was set back behind a row of trees, and when I drove down their gravel drive, I saw the house was modern, all angular planes and glass rectangles, with enormous quartz stones placed artfully in the garden and small gingko trees growing among them. When Eva answered the door and we’d introduced ourselves, she told me that Chloe’s father, Andrew, was not there – he was at work in London.

Eva was younger than I had imagined. Her dark hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail and she was wearing a red silk blouse and very high heels.

‘I’m so sorry about Chloe. I can’t imagine what it must be like to lose a child.’

‘Oh, I’m not Chloe’s mother. I’m her stepmother. Her wicked stepmother, she would have said.’

‘I didn’t realise.’

‘Chloe was fourteen when I met her. Her mother was killed in a car crash. Chloe was in the car too. And Andrew. And there was a little boy who died, Chloe’s brother. It was hideous.’

I didn’t know what else to say after that. I took out a picture of Flora and showed it to Eva. Flora was standing in Nicholas’s garden, triumphantly clutching the cat to her chest.

Eva examined the picture closely. ‘Goodness, isn’t she a piece of Chloe when she was a girl. Wait a minute, I’ll show you a photo.’

She clattered down the hallway and came back with a framed picture of a young Chloe dressed in an equestrian costume and sitting astride a gleaming horse. She was smiling, her hand resting fondly on the horse’s neck.

‘She was a brilliant rider. A champion, she could have been. But she gave it up.’

I thought of what Eva had said about Chloe always surprising them. ‘What happened to Chloe?’ I asked her.