In an instant, she’s out of the car. Shock registers on Tom’s face as she sprints towards him, but it quickly morphs into relief. Kate opens her arms wide and calls his name, mentally urging him to run to meet her. Still he doesn’t move but then a jolt seems to pass through his body and he drops his bin bag and speeds towards her. As they embrace, Kate hears a roar of excitement from the entrance to the car park. She’s almost certain she can hear the sound of the photographers’ cameras firing, machine gun fast. She buries her face in the crook of Tom’s neck and she smiles.

Tom stares out of the window as they drive through South London.

‘You forget … about the small things.’

Kate glances at him. He’s barely said a word since he got into the car. ‘What was that?’

‘Normal life. People going shopping, walking the dog, chatting, laughing …’ He tails off.

Kate moves her hand from the gear stick to his thigh. ‘You’re part of all that again now. We can put what happened behind us.’

In the first few months in prison Tom would spend every visit going over and over what had happened, the ‘crime’ that had sent him away, trying to make sense of it, berating himself for what he did or didn’t do. He sent her letters, filling page after page with his thoughts. He was so obsessed, so repentant, so desperately unhappy that Kate contacted their lawyer asking if he could arrange for her to speak to the prison governor. She was worried that Tom might need a psychiatrist. Anthony talked her out of it. It was the shock, he said. Tom was processing not just what had happened, but also his new reality. Once he got used to the routine, and accepted that his sentence had an endpoint, he’d begin to calm down. Kate protested but Anthony’s years of experience were too persuasive, and eventually she backed down. He was right, of course. Over time Tom stopped mentioning his ‘crime’ and began sharing snippets from his daily routine instead. He had a job, he told her, working in the laundry, and he had become an unofficial life coach to many of the inmates. He sounded … not happy exactly, but accepting of the situation, which in turn made Kate feel more positive about the life they would have together when he returned home.

‘Can we?’ Tom asks now. ‘Put it behind us?’

‘Of course we can.’ There’s a forced cheeriness in Kate’s tone that even she can hear.

‘Oh,’ Tom says as they park up.