The woman said dazedly, ‘I didn’t mean…He was going to take my daughter away.’

‘He’s a policeman. He won’t hurt her. You need to be calm. Do you think you can do that for me?’

The woman blinked. Pillai said, ‘Just let me check on Anna for you, okay?’

No response, so the doctor turned to Hirsch. ‘Let’s get her into the shop, next to the refrigerated cabinets.’ She glanced at Tennant. ‘Some damp towels, please, Mr Tennant. Ice if you have it.’

Hirsch followed as they trooped inside, the child moulded hot and damp to his shoulder and uttering shallow, panting breaths. The woman named Denise kept close to him, calmer now.

He blinked as he moved from sunlight to dimness. It was always murky in Ed’s shop, maybe to hide the cobwebs in the corners of the pressed-tin ceiling. Warped floorboards creaked as Hirsch hurried down an aisle between shelved groceries to the banks of refrigerated units along the back wall. Frozen food behind glass; butter, milk, cheese and processed meat on open shelves. The air was markedly cooler.

And then Dr Pillai was gently taking the child from his arms and stripping off her pants and top.

‘Poor little thing, she’s so hot.’

‘Ed! Wet towels,’ said Hirsch, an edge to his voice.

Tennant was standing with Martin Gwynne and a couple of others, and seemed torn between the little girl’s plight and the desire to keep an eye out for light-fingered customers. It was Gwynne who replied. ‘Should I…?’

‘I’m on it,’ Gemma said, trotting to a door in the corner.

Hirsch had been in town for a year now; he knew the door led to a storeroom, a tearoom and the staff toilet. Presently he heard the rush of tap water and Gemma was hurrying back with a pair of sodden, threadbare towels, intent and capable. She pushed past Gwynne, who gave her a sour look.

It occurred to Hirsch that Gemma Pitcher might do all right if she got out of Tiverton. She was a soft, slow-moving twenty-year-old, her usual outfit a vast T-shirt above sandals and knee-length black leggings. Limp brown hair to her shoulders, cropped raggedly above her eyes. A nostril stud, an eyebrow ring, a barcode tattooed on one fleshy calf. Nothing and no one to stimulate her—but now this little emergency. And she was equal to it, shoving one of the towels at Hirsch and folding the other into a square the size of a breadboard and placing it on the floor.

Pillai nodded her approval and settled the toddler’s tiny spine on the moist pad. She reached wordlessly for the second towel and began to dab the flushed face, neck and trunk and brush away the perspiration-damp hair. She looked up. ‘Another towel, please.’

Gemma came back with a wet, grimy handtowel. ‘Sorry.’