‘Come into my office,’ said the doctor, and Josh, Shauna and Connor trailed after her into a poky little room with a depressing view of a dark central courtyard.

The doctor moved behind the desk and sat down, indicating that they should sit, too. None of them did. Josh’s mouth was dry as he said: ‘Is Aysha all right?’

‘She has some nasty bruising.’

‘And the baby?’ asked Connor.

The doctor pursed her lips. ‘I’m sorry. I’m afraid we couldn’t save it.’

Aysha was propped up in bed in the middle of a busy ward with several other women, looking almost as pale as the thin hospital pillows. When she saw Shauna and Josh, she started to cry.

‘Oh, Mum,’ she sobbed, and Shauna hugged her tightly.

‘There’ll be other babies,’ said Shauna. That fucker Minghella.

‘No! No there won’t.’ Aysha pulled back from her mother’s embrace. She grabbed her father’s hand, squeezed it. Connor came to the other side of the bed and kissed his sister’s cheek.

‘Where is Joey?’ asked Connor, thinking that when he got hold of that git he was going to pull his guts out. He should be here, with his wife.

‘He ran off,’ gulped Aysha, rubbing her eyes with a tissue. ‘He fingered his mates for that job with the old woman who died. Their families are out to get him, so he said he had to go. I tried to stop him. Told him he had responsibilities, now he was going to be a father.’

‘Aysha,’ said Shauna, her eyes dark with concern. ‘Don’t . . .’

‘You want the truth? I was in his way, so he pushed me down those stairs and killed his own baby. He could have killed me too, but he didn’t care about that. All he was thinking about was running away, saving his own skin.’

‘We’ll find him,’ said Connor.

‘No,’ said Aysha, casting a desperate, tear-sodden glance at him. ‘Don’t you get it? I don’t want him back. I hate him. He murdered my baby and he as good as murdered that poor old woman too. I don’t want him anywhere near me. Not now, not ever.’

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111

‘I can’t come home yet,’ said Josh quietly on the phone as he sat in his study back at the house. And saying it made him realize all the more where his heart truly lay now. That was home, New York, with Claire and her daughter. This was just a remnant of a life. But it was one he couldn’t abandon yet, much as he wanted to. He might not have planted the seed that grew into Aysha, but he was all the father she had, and she needed him.

‘Is Aysha all right?’ asked Claire.