A night of worrying and praying for him followed, hoping against hope that history was not about to repeat itself. All she really wanted to do was to drive straight down there, though she wasn’t even sure which infirmary he was in, and find him in that hospital bed and hold him tight in her arms. But she had to sit there and wait. She had called Bev in the late evening as she had to talk to someone, and her friend knew more than most about the background to all this.

‘Shall I come round, Em? Do you want some company?’

‘No, I’m all over the place. Can’t settle to anything, even though I’ve loads to do. Just talk to me a minute. I’ll go off to bed soon. I should really try and get some sleep.’

So they’d chatted about all sorts of inane things. It was too hard to go too near the truth. What might be happening in that hospital an hour away? They couldn’t change anything, they just had to wait for news, which Emma didn’t expect at least until morning when the CT scan had been done.

‘He’ll be okay, Em. I’m sure he’ll be okay,’ Bev tried to reassure. ‘I’ll call again in the morning. And if you need anything, even if it’s in the middle of the night, just shout.’

‘Thank you.’

Emma had saved Christine’s phone number, but felt she ought to give his family their space for that evening. After all, they hadn’t even heard of her until today. She was still holding her phone in her hand after speaking to Bev. She looked at the photo of Max’s message written in chocolates and a tear dropped down on to her wrist.

She had a broken, dream-filled sleep, waking, with sharp snatches of memories of Luke’s death gripping her every now and then, then she’d sleep restlessly once more. She had to be ready to start work again in the morning. There was still so much to do. But at least it would keep her occupied. It was only one week until Christmas.

It was twenty to eleven in the morning, when her mobile rang: Christine. Emma froze, almost too scared to answer it.

‘Excuse me for just one second,’ she said to a gentleman who was browsing in the shop. ‘I really need to take this call.’

‘No problem.’ He carried on looking at the boat-shelf selection.

Emma walked towards the inner hall doorway and pressed ‘green’.

‘Christine? How is he?’ She hardly dared breathe.

‘They did the scan first thing this morning, and it’s clear.’

‘Oh, that’s brilliant!’ She didn’t care if the guy in the shop saw her tears of relief.