By the time she arrived, the ground floor of the terraced house was alight. Two fire crews were attending the scene, and there was an ambulance waiting and another patrol car. House fires were terrifying. They could be unpredictable and uncontrollable and they happened so fast. PC Sharma had been doing this job for more than twenty years, but house fires still got to her. Especially when there were children involved. Your house is where you feel safe; it’s there to protect you and the people you love. No one goes to bed at night thinking they might never get out alive.

But she was lucky. Maya had got out alive and when her daughter saw her, she ran over and collapsed, crying and shaking in Neesha’s arms. She was hysterical. The little boy was still trapped inside. She hadn’t been able to get to him as the fire had blocked the staircase. She kept saying it over and over again. Talking about the flames and the smoke. Thick black smoke. And how she couldn’t breathe. That’s when she’d run outside, screaming for someone to call 999.

As her mum, Neesha tried to comfort her daughter. She’d done the right thing. It wasn’t her fault. That’s when Maya told her that she’d lit a candle and left it burning as she’d fallen asleep. She was sobbing so hard it was difficult to hear her speaking, so PC Neesha Sharma did what she was trained to do: she switched from her role as a mother to that of a police officer. She told Maya calmly but firmly that the highly trained firefighters would rescue the boy; that they had special breathing apparatus and would find a safe escape route.

But then PC Sharma saw him: a desperate figure that she knew at once must be the father. His anguish was visceral and, as a parent, it tore at her. Jumping out of his van, he was trying to get into the house, shouting his son’s name over and over again as the firefighters tried to restrain him. He couldn’t go in. It was far too dangerous. He wouldn’t survive the flames and the smoke.

He was with a woman. She was trying to comfort him, while calling out for Harry. PC Sharma didn’t know who that was. The rescue crews only had reports of a young boy trapped inside. That’s when Maya told her mother that there was also a dog in the house. That’s the reason she was alive. A rescue dog, from the shelter that she worked at, had woken her up by barking and alerting her to the fire. If he hadn’t been there, well, it didn’t bear thinking about . . .

PC Sharma looked at the couple, clutching each other now as the firefighters put ladders up against the house, trying to reach the attic bedroom at the back. She felt her breath hold tight inside her chest, as two of them broke a window and disappeared inside. Waited for what felt like the longest time, until one emerged with a small boy in his arms. Watched as the ambulance crew rushed forward with a stretcher. Witnessed the father collapsing to his knees in relief.