The very earliest shops have lights on in them. The city is beginning to wake, people beginning their days. Another day, like the last. You can stop all this, I tell myself. You’ll go to Freya and she will help you, you’ll get sleep, get rest, and she will let you know if Charlie is okay. You just have to make it to her address; you just have to knock on her door. It’s five in the morning, and surely she will be there, it’s just that you will have to wake her up. But it’s all right, it’s all right, she’ll understand. You’ll just tell her how desperate things have got. She is trained not to judge and she’s already been so kind.

The taxi driver pulls up to the kerb. Above us there are thick high-rise buildings. Tower blocks.

‘Here you are,’ he says. He cranes round in his seat to look at us. ‘Sure you’ll be all right from here?’ He’s concerned for us – a dishevelled woman and a young, exhausted boy, travelling across the city in the middle of the night. He doesn’t know that we’ve come here for help. I make myself smile at him. ‘We’ll be fine, thank you.’ I fumble in my purse for a tip, find a couple of fifty-pence pieces and hold them out to him, forgetting that I’m supposed to use the app. He takes them silently, his eyes still on Charlie. I hurry to unstrap my son and get him out.

I take Charlie’s hand as the taxi pulls away, its red tail-lights disappearing up the street. I pull out Freya’s driver’s licence and squint in the dim light to check the address again. Charlie is the one gripping my hand now. There is no one around. The night is freezing. I realize that neither of us have coats. Inside Freya’s flat though, it will be warm, I’m sure of that. And look, there’s a map here, to show us where to go. The block we need is just on our right. For a moment I worry that we won’t be able to get in. There’ll be some sort of security system, won’t there? And if I have to ring a bell, will it even be working? Will Freya hear it? Would she come down when I tell her who it is? Haven’t I seen a hundred times in books and movies that scene where the patient turns up at the professional’s home inappropriately, crazily, breaching all kind of boundaries? Isn’t this exactly what I am doing?

It’s for Charlie’s sake, though. For Charlie’s sake. And Freya told me to come to her, any time.