In fleshing out the story of a stranger’s act of heroic courage, newspaper reporters had done their homework and found out that Rick had a pregnant fiancée. It had all the ingredients of a perfectly newsworthy story with a perfectly tragic ending, exactly what would appeal to their readers.

On the pavement where the attack had happened, a shrine of flowers had appeared with mawkish RIP messages for a man nobody in the area had actually known. A man whom nobody, not even those with whom he’d worked, ever really knew.

But then that was true of them all, thought Naomi as she stood at the kitchen window drinking the last of her coffee and watching Willow walk to the end of the garden with Ellis.

It was now the first week of December and four weeks had passed since Rick’s death and only in the last few days did Willow seem more like her usual self. During those difficult weeks, and despite them all saying she mustn’t, Willow had blamed herself for his death. For such a tender-hearted girl, it was a heavy load to carry on top of everything else.

Her coffee finished and putting her mug in the dishwasher, Naomi heard her mobile ping with a text message. Picking up the device, she saw it was a message from Geraldine. After a barrage of communications from Brian begging her to return home, Geraldine had come to her senses and done just that. Once home, she discovered that Brian had arranged for them to go on a cruise to the Galapagos Islands.

‘I call it very high-handed of him to book the trip without checking with me first,’ Geraldine had grumbled to Naomi. To which Naomi had told her friend to stop complaining and just be pleased that Brian was finally doing what she had wanted him to do, and that was to act with more spontaneity.

Any news on when the inquest will take place? Geraldine had texted.

Still no word, Naomi replied.

They’d been told it could take a while for Rick’s post-mortem to be done and for the coroner’s inquest to reach a verdict – probably death by unlawful killing – and only then would Rick’s body be released for burial. With no family of his own to arrange his funeral, that task would fall to Willow as his next of kin. When the time came, Naomi and Ellis would help as much as she would allow them to. She seemed so very determined that things should be done right for Rick, that she owed him that much.

Detective Constable Fowler, who had been dealing with the case – which was now classed as murder, having previously been referred to as offensive wounding with intent – didn’t inspire confidence that the culprits would be found. CCTV had yielded nothing more than a few seconds of blurred footage.

There had been an awkward moment that day when the detective and her sidekick had turned up here to tell Willow that Rick had been involved in a serious assault. Giving Willow a scrutinising look, the woman had enquired about her cut lip and black eye. She made the question sound as though it was in some way connected to the attack on Rick, especially when she then asked Willow where she had been at the time of the assault. Naomi had quickly nipped that line of questioning in the bud and made it very clear that Willow had been with them. Geraldine had then blurted out how Willow had come by her injuries, which Naomi wished she hadn’t. The detective seized on this nugget of information and, granted she was only doing her job, it was galling for them all suddenly then to be considered suspects, as though they had planned the attack to exact revenge on the man who had hurt a member of their family. It was a ludicrous suspicion that thankfully gained no traction.