‘Look, I know how you —’

‘Do you?’ Noor LeBrac is not a babbler. Her pauses are weapons. ‘Have you woken up every single morning since that bus bomb went off and pictured a maniac stomping your child to death out of revenge for something the media says she’s responsible for? Or imagined the police arresting her and keeping her in one of those underground cells at Paddington Green for as long as they like, because if she’s a Sarraf and a LeBrac she’s obviously a terrorist? We’re clichés like that.’ Rachel goes to speak, but Noor LeBrac holds up a hand again. ‘Don’t dare to presume how I feel.’

Lying has made Rachel weak. It makes her voice quiver and it stops her from looking this woman straight in the face. And she’s getting mighty sick and tired of Noor LeBrac’s hand. ‘Okay, I’m not here about your case,’ she says bluntly. ‘Saying I’m your barrister was the only way they’d let me in at short notice.’ She flicks quickly through her notebook and slides one of Bee’s photographs across the table.

It has the desired effect. Noor LeBrac isn’t going to walk away from a recent photo of her child.

Rachel points to Bee. ‘That’s my daughter.’

Noor stares at the photograph greedily. ‘She was on the trip with them?’

‘Bee Ballyntine-Ortley,’ Rachel says, spreading out the rest of the photos. ‘She shared a room with Violette.’

There’s a question in Noor’s eyes, a tilt to her head as she studies her. ‘You’re married to the copper Ortley.’

‘Was.’

Noor looks down at Rachel’s belly.

‘Not his. Our marriage didn’t survive the death of a child. We’re clichés like that.’

Noor LeBrac makes a sound of dismay, as if she can’t help herself. ‘I should have seen it,’ she murmurs.

Suddenly Rachel feels she can’t breathe. She wants to cry and has to get out of here before she does. She tries to stand.

‘Stay,’ Noor says.

Rachel shakes her head. ‘I shouldn’t have come. I shouldn’t have come here.’

And then a hand reaches out and takes hers. ‘Stay. Please.’

Rachel can only stare at the hand. After a moment, Noor lets go. ‘Your daughter doesn’t have either of your colouring but she looks like your husband.’

‘Ex. Bish’s grandfather was Egyptian. Bashir.’

‘Of course.’ As if Bish had been a puzzle this woman has just solved. ‘Was it a son or daughter?’ she asks quietly.

‘Son. He drowned.’ Rachel points to the image of Eddie Conlon. ‘Stevie would have been thirteen this year.’

It is Noor LeBrac’s look of soul-wrenching empathy that finally breaks Rachel and she bawls. In front of this stranger, supposedly responsible for such devastation. And it makes Rachel speak until she’s hoarse. About David and Bee and the baby, and Bish, and the fact that regardless of how their marriage turned out, her greatest fear these days is someone knocking on her door to tell her he’s dead. She blames herself. It’s her pregnancy that seems to have begun his spiral into something truly frightening.