When he saw the eagerness in her eyes, he wondered how on earth she could have coped for eighteen months without seeing a single picture of Bonnie. ‘Have you seen any?’ he asked, unable to contain his curiosity.

‘No,’ she said brusquely, gazing at the tiny photo of Bonnie with her small silky pigtails. Last time Gill had seen her, Bonnie had had very little hair, certainly not enough to put in pigtails. ‘How could I have?’

He shrugged. ‘Maybe your mum brought some in?’

‘I haven’t seen my mum either.’

‘Seriously?’ Pat was shocked. He himself hadn’t heard anything from Gill’s parents, and his occasional emails went ignored. He had assumed it was because they were too devastated by what Gill had done. He hadn’t imagined that they had not been allowed to see her either.

‘I can’t explain it, Pat, but it was better for me when I was ill to cut myself off completely, just to try and start again. I couldn’t bear to see anyone.’

She did not take her eyes off the key fob, gently stroking Bonnie’s Perspex face. ‘Oh God, she’s so beautiful.’ Her voice cracked.

‘I know,’ Pat said, trying to contain himself. Seeing Gill appear so relatively normal was almost harder than what he’d steeled himself for, and reminded him with a painful jab of what they had all lost over the past year and a half. Bonnie had been without a mother. When he’d imagined Gill as a nervous wreck, incapable of cleaning her own teeth, he’d consoled himself with the knowledge that Bonnie no longer had a functional mother. And he’d been right, if she’d tried to kill herself. But that was a year ago, and now he was confronted with the fact that Gill had been here ever since, still Gill, healing slowly and depriving him and Bonnie of their rightful family.

‘Shit, this is hard,’ he said. ‘She’s started to ask about you, you know. Not properly, of course, she only has a few words. But she says “Mummy?” to most people around her at some point or another. Even me.’

Gill didn’t reply, just stared at the key fob. After a long silence, she eventually spoke, tension vibrating in her voice. ‘Can we talk about something else, something that’s not about Bonnie, or this place? How’s work?’

‘Work’s OK. Bit tricky . . .’ He’d been about to say ‘juggling everything’ but managed to stop himself. He didn’t want her to think he was having a go.

‘Any juicy cases?’ For a second, she sounded like the Gill he remembered, and his heart gave a small nostalgic flip.