And that’s when it all changed. Grace unfolds her legs; her tea has gone cold. She walks into the kitchen and makes another cup. She’d been so happy just before she made that call. She pours boiling water on to the same teabag, stirs in the milk, adds sugar as a pick-up and takes the cup back to the sofa. When Martin answered her excitement had quickly evaporated, which was ridiculous really; she hadn’t given him a chance to hear her out.

‘Can’t hear you, Gracie,’ he had told her when he picked up; the rain had started again and she watched the drops colliding as they ran down the car windscreen. ‘Speak up!’

She could hear Charley shouting in the background, Ash crying and the throaty sound of a woman’s laugh close to his phone. Eve’s laugh.

‘Where are you?’ she asked.

‘At Eve’s. She’s started Wednesday sessions now, she only told us yesterday. Sorry, I forgot to pass that on, but—’

‘Martin, I left my job.’ The statement had emerged as a flat little line of words one after another, not at all as she’d imagined.

‘It’s like a zoo in here, what did you say?’

‘When are you back?’

‘The kids want to stay the night; they’ve done some homework and now they’re having fun. Eve’s made food.’

‘It’s school tomorrow.’

‘Come on, Gracie.’

‘No.’

His reply was lost in the noise and laughter. She’d ended the call and turned off the ignition. She sat in the car for a while; a young woman walked past in the downpour, with plastic bags of shopping and a toddler on either side. A teenager locked his bright orange bike to the railings. The warden made a brief appearance, bulky in her padded anorak, her red hair hidden under the hood. She smoked a cigarette while her Pekinese urinated on the grass, then both disappeared back into her flat. Grace checked every shadowy doorway then got out, locked her car and walked to the door – walked, not ran – staring straight ahead. When footsteps approached from behind, going fast, her head sang with panic. She cringed as a young bloke brushed by, jogging at speed. He was shorter than her attacker had been but wore a hoody like his. One of the four who used to hang by the bins, she was convinced. The boy vanished around the corner of the building. She hurried inside, checked the lift was unoccupied and, after it reached the thirteenth floor, that the narrow hallway was empty. She unlocked the front door, stepped inside and slammed it behind her. She was safe.