‘And can you put it behind you?’ she asks, returning to the subject of last night as though there hadn’t been an interruption. ‘You won’t need to go to the inquest?’

‘I don’t know,’ Beth admits. DC Stone didn’t mention anything about an inquest, but he did say he’d pop round again when the file was ready to be handed over to the coroner. He also gave her a card with his contact details on. He said it was just in case she had any questions, but Beth isn’t sure he would have felt the need if that boy they arrested hadn’t spoken to her so fiercely. Beth hopes it was just talk, empty threats made in the heat of the moment. She was scared last night, and grateful for the detective’s card, but the reassurance of daylight is helping. Even if the police let him go, the squatter won’t be able to go back to the shop unit now that the police have cordoned it off. He’ll probably move on to another neighbourhood, become someone else’s problem, and forget all about Beth. She’ll throw the detective’s card away when she gets home, she decides.

‘Well, it will be months away even if you do,’ Saskia says, shaking her head in mild exasperation. ‘The wait times are a disgrace these days.’ Of course Saskia would be familiar with the process, Beth thinks to herself. Without journalism to feed her hunger for a story, Saskia now spends hours backing various campaigns on social media – from allergy awareness to narcotics anonymous to supporting victims of domestic abuse. Beth is horrified by some of the comments Saskia gets on her Twitter feed, but her friend seems to love a spat, the feistier the better.

Luckily Beth didn’t have a career to be wrenched away from when she had children. Nothing to miss when she’s doing an Ocado order or tidying the girls’ toys away for the millionth time. She met Simon at university and knew almost instantly that she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him. They moved to London from Bristol, and she worked in marketing for a few years. But then Simon’s bank sent them to Singapore and the expat lifestyle kept her occupied until Martha came along.

They reach Saskia’s house and pause on the pavement. ‘Coffee?’ Saskia says it more as an observation than a question because coffee together is a Friday morning tradition, but Beth can’t face any more of Saskia’s probing questions today.

‘Sorry, can’t today,’ she apologises. Then before Saskia tries to convince her otherwise, she gives her friend a quick wave and retreats into her house.