Seventeen weeks. It means Saffy would have known for a good two, perhaps even three months. Lorna can’t help but feel hurt that she hadn’t come to her straight away. Lorna had hidden it from her own mum, of course, but that was because she’d been not quite sixteen when she’d found out, Euan only a year older. Lorna had been five months gone before Rose had noticed. The wild-child only daughter of quiet, strait-laced Rose Grey had done what the neighbours had been predicting for years. Got herself knocked up when she was still in school. Everyone called her Pramface. Not that Lorna regretted any of it. She might have split with Euan when Saffy was only five, but they’d made a good go of it, moving in together, getting married, though divorced a few years later. But he’d remained a big part of Saffy’s life: she’d spent every other weekend with him in his little London pad when she was growing up, and Lorna knows the two of them remain close. Neither Lorna nor Euan ever remarried, and Lorna kept his surname.

Lorna had envisaged the day she’d become a grandmother. She knew she wouldn’t be old, because she’d been such a young mother. But she’d expected to be older than forty-sodding-one. What will Alberto think?

This all goes through her mind at speed. And then she pulls herself up. She’s being selfish. This isn’t about her. It’s about Saffy and Tom and their baby. ‘I’m so pleased for you, honey. Truly I am.’

Saffy seems to sag with relief. ‘It wasn’t planned but . . .’ She lets out a nervous laugh. ‘Well, you know.’

Lorna laughs too. ‘I do. Have you . . . have you told your dad?’

‘Not yet. I wanted to tell you first.’

She tries not to feel gleeful that at least she knows before Euan. ‘Well, come on then. Let’s get the kettle on and then you can show me where the bodies were buried. A sentence I never thought I’d say.’

Tom announces he’s going to walk Snowy around the block to give them time to catch up and disappears out of the front door. Why does she have the feeling he can’t wait to get away? Although Lorna feels relieved she’s got her daughter to herself for a bit.