Emma’s voice disorientates me. The mug of tea on my desk has a faint scum on top, long gone cold.

‘Don’t you normally leave at three?’

‘What?’ I look to the clock. It’s already five past. ‘Shit.’ Charlie. The school run. I’ve lost track of time completely. ‘You’re right,’ I tell Emma. ‘Thank you.’

I push my chair back so fast that I clip my ankle, and I shove everything into my bag in a complete jumble. I get a stitch running up the hill to his school. I make it only just in time.

The next three hours are completely taken up with Charlie: his homework, his dinner, his bedtime routine. I try to compartmentalize and put all thoughts of the email away – the way I’m able to with my to-do list in the kitchen drawer – but every other second the thoughts come slithering back. At bedtime, Charlie demands another chapter of his book, and another, even though by now I’ve read quite enough, the words squirming in front of my eyes.

‘Listen,’ I tell him, pushing the book into his hands. ‘I’ll leave the lamp on for you. You can carry on reading for half an hour longer.’ Because he’s a good reader, a great reader, perfectly capable of reading by himself.

He looks up from the pillows to where I’m standing, already half out of the bedroom door. ‘But I want you to read it!’ he says.

‘Charlie,’ I say. ‘Come on, that’s enough.’ He’s getting himself so het up. I click off the ceiling light and pull his door shut, my stomach churning. I wait in the hallway to see if he’ll cry, or shout for me, but behind the door there is only silence.

I go through to the living room where now, finally, I can pull out my work mobile. I can access all the emails on here as well. Hunched on the sofa, this time I conduct my own search. Manually. I don’t trust what the computer said. I open each folder and scroll through the messages, line by line. There are hundreds; the text blurs in front of my eyes. Sometimes I think I’ve found it, another email with similar letters. But each time I’m wrong. I go all the way through and still I find nothing, even though I check and re-check.