Her request had them all standing guard around the pram, ready to protect Serenity from the unwanted stranger amongst them.

All except for Willow who, in her typically generous fashion, lowered the hood of the pram so the woman could have a better look.

‘Boy or girl?’ she asked.

‘A girl,’ Willow replied.

‘She doesn’t look anything like Rick, does she?’ the woman said with a sniff. ‘Is she a good baby?’

‘Yes,’ said Willow. ‘She’s a perfect angel.’

Watching the woman peering into the pram, Martha bristled with latent hostility. Don’t even think about it, she wanted to say, you’re not coming within an inch of that child ever again.

‘What’s her name?’

‘Serenity.’

‘That’s a strange name,’ the woman said, straightening up. ‘But then you young folk think of such odd names these days, don’t you?’

When nobody responded she seemed to remember the train she was so worried about catching. ‘I must go,’ she said. ‘I’ve done what I came to do and please don’t worry that I’ll make a nuisance of myself. You won’t hear from me again. My son wouldn’t have wanted me to know his child, and so I intend to respect that wish. Goodbye.’

They watched her go and when she was out of sight, they looked at each other as if they couldn’t quite believe what had just happened.

‘What a very sad woman,’ murmured Willow.

The old critical and judgemental Martha would have tutted and rolled her eyes and said, Trust you to be so soft, Willow! But she didn’t. She put her arm around her sister and said, ‘I agree. Now come on, let’s go home.’

Ellis drove them back to Anchor House, the mood in the car subdued. Until the last few miles of the journey when Serenity decided she’d had quite enough of being so good, and livened things up by voicing her eagerness to be fed. Her cries, as insistent as they were, were a welcome antidote to the utter dismalness of the day.

That evening Tom rang from Yorkshire to ask how the funeral had gone.

‘I almost feel sorry for Rick now,’ he said when Martha had filled him in. ‘The poor sod didn’t exactly have the best start in life, did he? And it raises the eternal nature versus nurture question, was he born bad or made bad?’

‘We’ll never know for sure, but I’m afraid it doesn’t mean I can forgive him. Or that ghastly mother of his. I know it’s perverse of me, because I don’t want her anywhere near Serenity, I really don’t, but I can’t stop asking myself what kind of a woman would throw away the chance to play an active role in the life of a grandchild she’s just discovered she has? She literally just walked away without a backward glance.’

‘But you don’t know how difficult that might have been for her to do. From what you’ve said it sounds like she didn’t want her husband to know that she’d attended her son’s funeral, which probably means her loyalty to him overrides anything else.’