‘Just for a bit. Just for a little while, eh? I’ll go somewhere and lie low. No, no, what I’ll do, I’ll go and get some casual work somewhere – pick fruit, I could pick fruit, yes – and wire you the money.’

He was never usually so scattered, so jerky. He never usually spoke without thinking it through first.

‘Mark, I think you’re drunk. This is all seeming a bit weird. Maybe you just need a sleep?’

‘There’s no time, beautiful girl. No time for sleep just now. I shouldn’t even have come back here tonight but I couldn’t leave you without letting you know.’

‘But – the baby. We’re having a baby together. In, like, four months. Are you going to be back for that?’

He attempted to put a long kiss on her, holding her jaw in his hand and laying his wet mouth over hers, then tried to turn it into a series of smaller kisses as she wrenched away.

‘Answer the fucking question, Mark. Are you going to be here for the birth?’

‘Princess. I will do’ – kiss – ‘everything in my power’ – kiss – ‘to be back by your side before this’ – kiss – ‘baby is born.’ Kiss. ‘Back by your side is where I’m supposed to be. It’s where Mark Carr belongs. And I’ll write to you. I’ll write letters anonymously but I’ll find a way of making sure you know it’s me. I’ll send you ways of getting in touch with me along the road. And the second it all blows over, which I’m sure it will, you’ll have your man, this baby’s father, right back home again.’

There were tears on his face, glassy in the street light.

‘I have no choice. I need you to hear me on that. I have to run, right now, or they’ll get me. You know that, don’t you, Sammi? You hear me.’

She hadn’t known what to do. She’d clung to him, cried, shouted, insisted on coming with him, all the while feeling him peel her off him, sensing that he wanted to leave immediately. She’d suggested they go downstairs and he talk it through with her properly; this had proved a mistake, as it allowed him to make a physical break. He’d placed her, heaving sobs and all, in a chair while he crept into the sleeping space and grabbed a couple of belongings. He’d hugged her again, he’d pulled up her top and kissed the bump, and he’d left.