In the absence of a reply to her knocking, Maggie opened the door slowly, calling his name softly as she put a foot inside. The curtains were drawn and the bed was made. Nothing surprising there; his lectures started at 9 a.m. every day. He’d have left an hour ago to make sure he was in good time. Bart wasn’t the sort of student who ever turned up late. But he hadn’t woken her up. His normal routine was to wake, shower, have breakfast, clear up the kitchen, and to take her a cup of tea before leaving the house. She in turn would rise later, do the washing, shop and leave something tasty in the slow cooker before going off for her shift – telesales was thankless but they hadn’t missed a mortgage payment yet – which started at lunchtime and went on until 8 p.m.

It wasn’t the lack of a cup of tea that bothered Maggie. Her son was entitled to forget doing that for her. She counted her blessings on a daily basis for him, with or without his little kindnesses. What she couldn’t understand was why his mobile was still sat on his bed, charging, exactly where he’d left it the night before when he’d dashed out to grab an extra shift at the restaurant. Another waiter had called in sick. Bart had been offered the hours, and the thought of boosting his savings account was too tempting to refuse. The pay wasn’t great but the tips were, and he always attracted enough customer goodwill to make a night’s work worthwhile. His phone had been running on empty so he’d left it on his bed charging ready for the next morning. Maggie had watched him plug it in as she’d delivered a pile of freshly ironed clothes for him to put away. Those, too, sat waiting on the bed for his return.