Laura manages to call from her hotel and when Tim answers the phone his face softens and he gives us a thumbs-up. We all burst into tears. It’s not real relief, though. How could it be?

It goes dark and we’re still watching. Eventually my dad says we must eat, it’s not going to help anyone if we don’t. They go back across the road and Mum returns to our side of Hazelmere Crescent later with a bottle of brandy – her go-to medicine for shock – and a big bowl of pasta. Elaine refuses to go to bed, but falls asleep for long enough for us to carry her into her bedroom.

Alone again, Tim breathes heavily. ‘Jesus, Kerry. Who would do this?’

I shake my head. I am imagining the American emergency call handlers and the paramedics and the firefighters and the police and the doctors and the nurses.

‘You must have been beside yourself about Laura.’

He nods and takes a gulp of the brandy he’s poured. ‘The thing is, though, Kerry, all the time I was ringing round, trying to find out where she was . . .’ He closes his eyes. ‘Don’t get me wrong. I’m relieved she’s OK. But I knew there was only one person I wanted to have here with me, safe, in this room, where no one can get us. And that’s you.’

‘Well, of course, I—’

Before I can finish, he’s kissing me, tasting of sweet brandy, but the real sweetness is how tender it is, this kiss, and how much I want to kiss him back. It is not only desire, though that is there too.

Most of all, this is my place of safety.

Chapter 21: Tim

15 May 2002

It feels strange to be saying goodbye to Christine. We never spoke, she knew nothing about my life and – aside from what I could surmise from the state of her liver and arteries – I knew nothing about hers.

Yet, in her silence, she’s taught me almost everything. And today, in the university chapel, we’re thanking her and the other cadavers donated to our medical school this year, for letting us take them apart.

‘The generosity of this gift will be felt for decades, as the doctors-to-be in this room use the knowledge and skills they have gained to treat tens, if not hundreds of thousands of patients,’ the dean intones.

Even Wilcox has allowed his permanently arched eyebrow to drop, and without that sardonic touch, he looks younger. Laura sits between us. There were no recriminations when I told her about me and Kerry. She just said, I always thought it’d be you and her.

Wilcox thinks she’d shagged someone during the long summer break anyway and was probably relieved she didn’t have to dump me first.

‘It takes a special person, and special families, to choose this type of donation . . .’