‘What were you doing in my rucksack?’ The tone is belligerent; the good mood has vanished.

‘What if I showed this to the police?’

‘You wouldn’t.’

‘I would.’

He tries to snatch the knife but her fingers close tightly around the handle. ‘I’d do anything to stop you ending up like that lot in the car park.’

His eyes darken with anger.

‘What have you done, Blake?’

No answer. She picks up her phone. ‘I’m phoning the police, right now.’

He watches in silence as she punches the keypad three times, then waits. They stare at each other across the kitchen.

‘Police, please.’

After a few seconds, his breathing becomes wheezy; she hands him the inhaler from the shelf as she waits.

‘Ah, yes, good evening. I’m phoning to report possession of a bloodstained knife—’

‘Rabbits,’ he mutters.

‘What?’ She lowers the phone.

‘Rabbit blood.’

‘How come?’

No answer.

‘How come, Blake?’

He grabs the jam and walks out of the kitchen without the knife. Rabbits, for God’s sake. It’s crazy enough to be true; there must be lots of rabbits in Eve’s place. He might catch them and skin them for supper; she can see Eric teaching him, skilful, unsentimental. She hopes Charley didn’t see. She puts the knife back in her saucepan; she’ll give it to Eric next time she sees him; it’s probably his. She hadn’t dialled 999, she’d punched three zeros instead and talked into a dead phone. She looks at the dirty plates on the kitchen table. They can wait. She’s tired, as if she’s reached the end of a journey and she’s somewhere better than the place she left, though she’s still not sure where she is.

Martin comes back at nine with a bumper pack of chocolate mini rolls, but by then the kids are asleep. They unwrap one each in the kitchen; he makes tea while she tells him about Sorrel’s improvement.

‘Thank God.’ He passes her a mug. ‘That terrible man. I thought I knew him. I suppose we naturally believe the best of people; he must have traded on that. He managed to fool us all.’

I thought I knew you. Grace watches him over the rim of her mug. I believed the best of you as well, you fooled me too. She sips her tea. ‘Charley began to ask about us today.’

‘And?’

‘She lost her nerve.’

‘What would you have said?’

‘It would have been difficult.’ She puts her chocolate roll back in the silver paper and wraps it up again. ‘I’d hate to upset her.’

Martin walks to the window. She looks at the familiar way his hair grows in a little whorl at the crown, thinner now than when they met, greyer; his shoulders are more hunched.