At the hospital, she lied. She told them a much more palatable story. One she could share with the neighbours, if she had to.

Just an accident. Just a mistake. Nothing to do with me being unwell.

My mother helped look after Charlie a lot more after that. She took him off me most of the time. And I fought my way up through the blackness. I managed to break free of it, not talking to anyone, just fighting interminably upwards on my own.

I think it cost me a great deal to do it like that. I think it left me with strange mental scars.

There came a day when I made it out. I remember the exact moment. It happened one morning, quite out of the blue. I went through to Charlie’s room to lift him from his cot and the early morning sun was shining in at the window, dazzling him a little in his eyes. I lifted my hand, to make a shade for him, and he opened his eyes wide, looked up at me and smiled.

He smiled.

In that moment, my whole world righted itself.

From that moment, I loved Charlie in a way that made everything else fall away, everything that had gone before.

I loved him with a violent, soul-bending love.

And I have never fallen out of love with him since.

Chapter 41

The day after the inquest, Friday, I head into the office. Emma is there, same as always, scrolling through the dozens of updates on her phone. I listen more carefully to her this time, though, to what she says when she tells me about all her online friends, people she knows from all over the world, who like her posts and put hearts for her kitten pictures and cry-laugh emojis at the silly things she says.

People she has never met. People she only knows online.

As we switch off our computers at the end of the day, I do something I never have before. I ask her if she has any plans for the evening. Before, I’ve always assumed she has so many friends. In my mind she was always rushing across London for parties.

But: ‘Oh,’ she says with an awkward laugh. ‘No … Bit of a quiet one for me tonight.’ She looks really quite small, standing there in the office doorway, with her coat done up right to her chin, her phone still clutched in her hand, like a lifeline to the world.

‘Do you fancy an after-work drink then? I don’t have to pick up Charlie until later.’ Charlie is on a play-date with Molly until six thirty, and right now it is only just after five.

Emma’s eyebrows lift in surprise but a smile follows quickly behind. ‘Thanks,’ she says. ‘That would be … really nice. It can be a bit lonely, you know? Nights you’re home alone.’