Over the next month or two, Gill did start to feel better. She had a course of cognitive behavioural therapy and went on to anti-depressants and she, Pat and Bonnie settled back into a new kind of routine. Bonnie was such a delight to them both that, if he was honest, Pat could not understand how Gill could possibly be depressed. She had all day to herself, coffee with friends, play dates with Bonnie, gym sessions while Bonnie was entertained in the crèche. She said she welcomed the break from the Bar, along with its endless case notes to be read and briefs to be prepared.

She didn’t cry nearly so much anymore – but then a new, and possibly even less appealing emotion took precedence, one that she didn’t want to inflict on Bonnie, so she saved it up for Pat instead. He’d just be through the door making an innocent enquiry about their day, and it would start:

‘What did I do today? Well, let’s think – I slept in till noon, had a long boozy lunch with the girls at Oxo Tower, came home, entertained my twenty-five-year old lover – what do you fucking think I did? I changed eight nappies, ironed a pile of clothes that can be seen from space, scraped carrot mush off the floor and fed some ducks.’

‘There’s no need to be so sarcastic,’ became Pat’s new catchphrase.

He tried to be patient. But he was tired too, sleep-deprived and working as hard as ever at the station during the day – harder, as he’d recently been promoted to DI and it became a matter of principle to be better than Winkler at his job. He felt as though he was mourning the loss of his happy marriage, his happy wife, their sex life. So he threw all his energies into work instead.

Until the day he came home and found Gill sitting on the stairs, and Bonnie half-dead in her cot.

It was four months before he went back to work after that. For the first few days he stayed with Bonnie on the paediatric ward of Kingston Hospital, watching her bruises fade and her colour slowly return. The look of bewilderment in her eyes was more heartbreaking than the bruises around her neck.

‘She had a lucky escape,’ the doctor said. ‘There’s no lasting brain damage. Good thing you weren’t doing overtime that night.’

Patrick had shuddered. He had indeed been so close to staying late that evening to pore over some witness statements, but at the last minute hunger and a burning desire to hold his baby daughter had propelled him out of the office and into his car.