I scooped her up and swung her round. She threw her head back and laughed with delight, and the weight of her in my arms and the sticky scent of her neck when I kissed it made me realise how much I had missed her. Evelyn was watching us from the doorway.

‘Play. Let’s play,’ Cassie imperiously demanded with her hand snatching the air in the direction of her toys.

‘I’ve got to work, Cass, or Penny’ll want to know why. Tell you what, though. I’ll come across at teatime and read you a story. I promise.’ And how simple that was, I thought, compared with my negotiations with Jack. I was going to put her back in her chair but Evelyn said she would take her.

As I passed the child over, Evelyn’s hair caught between us and briefly lifted off her face to reveal a shiny red and purple swelling over her cheekbone and under her eye. I glanced away at once but she knew I had seen it. She shook her head so that the masking curls fell free again and drew her lips up into a bright little smile. ‘Clumsy, aren’t I? I walked smack into a lamp-post when I’d had a couple of drinks,’ she said.

I nodded sympathetically, accepting the lie while I wondered with a beat of horror if there had been any threat to Cassie.

Penny was busy at her bench but she looked straight across at me when I came in. The lines of misery round her eyes and mouth were all rubbed out.

‘So,’ I murmured.

Andy and Leo waved vaguely to me, then bent their heads to indicate that they were elaborately absorbed in their separate tasks.

‘I’ll look after them. I won’t bloody well let anyone lay a finger on either of them now or ever again,’ Penny swore in a low, fierce voice. ‘He’ll have to kill me first.’

‘I hope not,’ I said.

At lunchtime I told her about Jack and Audrey. We sat in the shade of the bindery wall because it was far too hot in the sun. My thin skirt stuck to my bare legs and sweat glued my hair to the back of my neck. When I closed my eyes, thick gold and purple patches swam behind my eyelids. ‘What shall I do?’

‘I’d say don’t force the issue. But I’m not really the best person to advise you or anyone else, am I? Given the state of play in my own life.’

‘Are they going to stay?’