Melissa paces the landing waiting for Paul to emerge; she is determined to see Izzy this time. The sparkly ‘I’ on Izzy’s door glistens in the security lights shining through the landing window. It’s getting late. Her footsteps are silent, cushioned by thick carpet. Their home was designed for quiet and she tries to quiet herself. The house won an architecture award the year it was built, but when Melissa returned from Eve’s a few hours ago and went down to the kitchen, the grey walls had closed round her like a prison. Eve’s kitchen is chaotic, her colours clash, the red of the sofa against the orange walls and the faded pinks of the Persian carpet. Cookery books are piled on the table along with recipes torn from magazines, children’s drawings are stuck to the walls, clothes are left on chairs. The windows are flung wide; the garden was alive with the noise of children today; Ash had been laughing joyously. Strange to think she can’t remember Izzy laughing at that age but then she hadn’t spent much time with her, at least in the day. They’d had an au pair so Melissa could work; at night she’d sneak from their bed and lie down next to her sleeping child, breathing her in.