Do you even know what love is?

And was it you who killed Lucy and Simon’s cat?

None of which she actually said aloud. Instead she bent down closer to Rick so that her lips were almost touching his ear.

‘Rick,’ she said, ‘it’s me, Willow. I don’t know if you can hear me, but if you can, I just want you to know that I forgive you. And I’m so sorry that this has happened to you because of me.’

The medical staff assured Willow that she would be better off going home and having a proper night’s sleep, for her baby’s sake as much as hers. They promised her that if Rick’s condition changed in any way, they would ring her. She still didn’t have her mobile phone, so Mum provided her contact details.

They were nearly back in Tilsham – Willow couldn’t bear the thought of staying in Rick’s flat, even though it would have been so much more convenient – when she felt a strange tightening in her stomach, followed by a dull ache in her lower back. It happened again when Mum let them in at Anchor House, and once more when she was brushing her teeth before going to bed. But she pushed it from her mind. It was too soon for the baby to arrive. She was still telling herself this when she padded downstairs at three in the morning to make a drink to help her sleep. She was exhausted, physically and mentally, but worrying about Rick meant she just couldn’t relax enough to fall asleep.

Waiting for the kettle to boil, she was suddenly gripped with the severest of pains that made her double up and cry out. When the pain had passed, and catching her breath, she switched off the kettle and decided she had better go back upstairs and break the news to her mother. She felt unnaturally calm. Not at all how she imagined she would feel when she went into labour. Even labour that was seven weeks earlier than it should be. Was this normal? Or should she be panicking?

No, she told herself firmly. Panic was the last thing she or the baby needed. She could do this.

Chapter Fifty-Eight

It was ungenerous of her, she knew, but after what Rick had done to Willow, and might have continued to do if given the chance, Naomi struggled to accept the way he had been hailed a hero.

The attack on Rick, and his subsequent death eight days later, made the national news, and once again there were demands made of the Mayor of London and the Government to put an end to knife crime once and for all. The elderly woman whom Rick had tried to help had been interviewed by the media and with a trembly voice she had said that, had it not been for a stranger’s bravery, for which she would always be grateful, it might well have been she who had died. In every interview she made a point of extending her sincere condolences to Rick’s devastated fiancée and family.