‘I suppose you want to have The Talk now,’ Eva said, but she did not sound angry. There was a muted tiredness about her – resignation, Abi thought.

She came and sat beside her daughter, resting her hand on Eva’s hip.

‘How are you feeling, love?’ she asked tenderly.

‘Kind of shitty.’

‘Did you sleep?’

‘Yes.’ And then she turned and lay on her back, meeting Abi’s gaze, and sheepishly admitted: ‘All I seem to want to do is sleep. It’s like I can’t stay awake.’

‘I was like that too, during my pregnancies. Swamped with exhaustion. I remember wondering if anyone in work would notice if I just crawled under my desk for fifteen minutes to take a nap.’

Eva gave a watery smile.

‘What am I going to do?’ she asked and Abi felt her heart contract with a fierce, protective love.

‘I don’t know, sweetheart.’

‘I keep thinking about Becca, how she’s just lost her child. And here I am with this baby growing inside me, and she’s right next door, watching. It’s stupid, but part of me thinks that maybe I should have this baby and just give it to them, and then I can go back to my life and they’ll have some kind of consolation to make up for Jo …’

Abi rubbed Eva’s tummy, the way she used to do when she was a little girl. Whenever she was upset or in a rage about some perceived injustice, Abi could always calm her child with the slow, circular movement of her palm. And now somewhere buried in the tight flesh of this girl was a grain of cells, circling and growing, embedding itself deeper and deeper into her. Abi looked down at her hand and Eva’s flat tummy beneath it with silent amazement.

‘But I just don’t know if I’d be able to go through with it,’ Eva continued. ‘And what about college? And when I think about what Dad’s going to say … Have you told him yet?’

‘No.’

‘Are you going to?’

‘We can tell him together.’

Eva nodded, and Abi saw the spark of fear in her eyes.

‘He loves you.’

‘But it won’t be the same,’ she said quickly. And Abi thought that perhaps this was true.

In her bedroom, the phone was ringing.

‘I’d better get it,’ she told Eva, explaining it might be the office.

But it wasn’t the office. It was Mark.

‘I’ve just had a phone call from Ursula Ford,’ he told her, and for a moment Abi was completely confused.

‘Who?’

‘Melissa’s neighbour. You know – the lady with the cats.’

‘Oh, right.’

‘She said there’s something up with the house. Some banging going on. She thinks someone’s in there.’

‘Someone’s broken in?’