Bish looked back at the group, who seemed oblivious to anyone but each other.

‘John Conlon should be here soon,’ Grazier said. ‘He can take Eddie. Elliot’s going to take Violette. You can take your daughter home in my car. I’ll get the kids back to the hospital in the Salvation Army bus. I think the Reverend’s heading this way with a vengeance as well. Apparently the senior citizens Charlie was supposed to pick up this morning are not happy.’

‘I’m taking Fionn to see his mother,’ Bish said.

‘Not your decision to make.’

‘G’day Violette,’ Elliot called out in an awful Australian accent. ‘How y’going?’

Violette laughed, despite herself. Bish had hardly ever seen her teeth, but Elliot received the full gummy grin.

‘Tell her to stop,’ Bee whispered to Bish. ‘She’s scaring me.’

The first of the journalists reached them, panting and red-faced. A one-mile walk had wiped them out. When a reporter from The Mail asked what they were doing in Malham Cove, the kids exchanged looks.

‘My father died here,’ Violette finally said, which resulted in a frenzy of questions. Violette ignored them, and instead told the story of the watch. Its bloody and beautiful history. Her belief that one day it would be returned to her family.

‘How fucking smart is this kid?’ Elliot said, watching a reporter surreptitiously wipe a tear from his eye.

Bish couldn’t help agreeing. All eloquence. No accusations. No bitterness.

‘Decent people, the grandparents,’ Elliot said. ‘Bloody decent. Wish I hadn’t got to know them. Bad things always seem to sniff out the most decent people. Yet the arseholes . . .’ He shook his head. ‘They keep on keeping on.’

When the local police had managed to get the kids inside the Visitors’ Centre, away from the press, a handful of villagers turned up with cake and juice. The Parkers and Bagchis arrived, in separate cars. Bish stood with Katherine and Sadia watching the girls with their fathers. The men would never be friends but it was clear they loved their daughters, so they were stuck with each other.

‘The only reason I’m not shouting at you, Bish, is because the girls are so happy,’ Katherine said.

‘All I ––’

‘Ring your mother,’ Sadia interrupted, her tone cool. ‘She will be the only person who’ll want to speak to you today.’

He rang Saffron, not because Sadia told him to, but because he wanted to.

‘Everyone’s a bit furious with you, Bish darling. Is it true you’ve kidnapped the children from the hospital?’ And it made him smile, the way his mother had of announcing the most dramatic thing in the most normal tone.

He was suddenly overcome with a homesickness for her. As if he’d regressed thirty-five years. ‘Where were you all those years I was at school?’ he asked. ‘Because if you say you were drying out I think I can cope with that. More than with your not wanting me.’

He had to wait a long moment for her reply. ‘Did I ever tell you that I went searching for my father when you started boarding? I missed you so much and I think I needed to fill that void.’