‘Pancakes?’ Ava’s eyes light up, and it reminds Kat of herself at that age. She was born with a sweet tooth and loved smearing Nutella on the wafer-thin pancakes that her mum would make as a Sunday treat. That was before her skin enflamed, and sugar became the enemy, and every forbidden bite tasted both better and worse.

‘I’ll do a deal with you,’ she offers. ‘If you get dressed in your smartest school uniform, and do it so quietly that you don’t wake Mummy, I will prepare you the finest banquet of pancakes and Nutella.’

‘Yay!’ the girls cry in unison, their difference of opinion already forgotten. They spin and slide across the floor, then race up the stairs, but on their tiptoes, heeding Kat’s warning not to wake Beth. She stands still, staring at the charcoal and cream runner that zigzags up the stairs, and fantasising for a moment about living here. And then, with a smile of anticipation, of making up for past mistakes, she walks into Beth’s kitchen.

Saskia is stood outside her own house, checking her watch impatiently. When she looks up, her brow creases in confusion. This is good, Kat thinks. This drives a sturdy wedge through Beth and Saskia’s friendship, even if Beth isn’t aware of it. To further prove her point, she reaches out towards the girls, and miraculously Ava takes the bait, curling her dainty fingers around Kat’s rough hand. On Kat’s instruction, which feels surprisingly natural to say she’s hardly even spoken to a child since she was one, the three of them walk across the road.

‘Hello,’ Saskia says in a polite, condescending voice, as though she’s interviewing a prospective cleaner. ‘Where’s Beth?’

‘She’s in bed,’ Ava states solemnly.

Kat watches Saskia’s expression darken. ‘Beth’s fine, just tired,’ she says quickly. She needs to deflect both suspicion and any offer of help from Saskia. ‘I’m walking Luna later and so she asked me to take the girls to school.’ Kat can feel Martha’s quizzical stare, but she doesn’t meet her eyes and eventually the 7-year-old gets distracted by Saskia’s daughter’s new hairband.

‘That must be why Beth didn’t answer my husband’s text,’ Saskia says, looking triumphant for some reason. ‘Well, why don’t I take them? It seems silly both of us going.’

Of course Saskia would say this. Try to wheedle her way further into Beth’s good books, make Kat look like the outsider. ‘I promised Beth that I’d take them,’ Kat counters. ‘But I can walk your two as well if you think it’s silly?’ she adds in an entirely alien tone.

Saskia offers her something between a cool smile and an angry grimace in retaliation. ‘Let’s walk together.’