As he passed the open living room door he saw his dad Jim sitting in his favourite chair, frowning at his iPhone, doubtless either playing Scrabble or reading the BBC website app. It seemed to be all that Jim did each day, that, and the Sudoku on the back page of the Guardian. Jim had retired from the civil service two years earlier, ostensibly to help Patrick’s mother Mairead with baby Bonnie, although Patrick never saw him lift a finger. It made him feel even more guilty about the burden he had placed on Mairead’s shoulders – despite the fact she robustly denied that the care of her only granddaughter was in any way a burden.

Bonnie screeched back. ‘YES I WANT TO BE THE ONLY ONE IN PYJAMAS NANNY!’

‘What are you doing home so early, Pat?’ Jim barely glanced up from his phone.

‘Flying visit,’ Patrick grunted in reply, dispelling the mental image of Isabel’s tiny broken body. In his mind, her face had morphed into Bonnie’s, the way it had looked on that terrible day he’d come home to silence and to Gill’s unravelling.

He went upstairs, desperate to see his daughter. There was a small stand-off taking place in the tiny study that had been hastily converted into Bonnie’s room. Bonnie stood with her arms folded and eyes narrowed, glaring at her grandmother. ‘No!’ she said, and stamped her feet at the little summer dress that Mairead was holding out to her. She was indeed still wearing her Peppa Pig pyjamas.

‘Hello, Bon-Bon,’ Patrick said, crouching down to her level and tapping her on the shoulder.

‘DADDY!’ she shouted ecstatically in his ear, twining her arms around his neck. Her dark curls tickled his face, soft as cobwebs. ‘You came home!’

He laughed and picked her up, the solid warm weight of her almost bringing tears to his eyes. ‘Yes I have – I will always come home to you! This time it’s just a quick visit to say hello, and then I need to have a shower and go out again. But I’ll be back later, I promise. Let’s get you dressed so Nanny can take you to playgroup, shall we?’

He took the sundress and a tiny pair of cotton pants out of his mother’s hand, as she gave him a grateful smile and a kiss on the cheek. He tried not to notice how tired she looked as she went back downstairs, more like seventy-eight than the sixty-eight she’d turned last month.

‘Right, you. Here’s what we’ll do. You put your big-girl pants on, and then you can put your Peppa PJ shorts back on – but only if you also wear the dress. Fair enough?’

Bonnie wriggled to be put down, then scrutinized him suspiciously. ‘Is that a deal, Daddy?’

‘I reckon that’s a very good deal. What do you and Peppa Pig think?’