Nell told herself not to be so dramatic. Ollie, the baby’s father, was due any minute and Willow and Marigold had gone to the airport to meet him. Soon Naomi would be surrounded by well-wishers.

The truth was, she would love another cup of coffee to stop her eyelids from drooping and to be frank she needed to pee, but she couldn’t risk leaving her post here at the baby’s side. All this time she’d been unable to see her grandchild, while Marigold held her in her arms, and now here she was, on her own with her at last.

She studied the tiny bare feet and the perfect hands and the slight movement of the baby’s chest as it moved up and down, breathing in the warm, oxygenated air.

An overwhelming love, stemmed for so long, suddenly flooded through Nell and she had to hide her head in her hands for a moment.

When she looked up almost a minute later, she was aware that something was different. The chest seemed to be somehow static and there was no longer a slight flutter in the baby’s eyelashes as she breathed in and out. Nell jumped up, panicking.

‘I won’t be a moment, darling,’ she whispered to Naomi and she ran to the door. There were no nurses visible at the nurses’ station. ‘There’s an emergency on the first floor. The nurse was called away,’ a young woman with a camera slung round her neck informed her. ‘I think someone’s had a heart attack.’

‘OK, thanks,’ she blurted, looking round for a staircase. She ran up two at a time to the floor above, where a group of medical staff were indeed in the process of pulling screens round a figure on the bed.

‘I’m sorry to burst in when you have an emergency but it’s my baby granddaughter. She’s got bronchiolitis and it seems to me she’s stopped breathing,’ she gasped, hoping somebody spoke English and could understand what she was saying.

A senior-looking woman doctor nodded to a very young-looking nurse and issued instructions in rapid Greek. ‘Daxi. We can handle this. Go and see what the situation is with this baby.’

The young woman led Nell to a lift and they both stood tensely waiting until the doors opened on the ground floor.

‘This way,’ Nell took her arm.

Naomi lay absolutely still under her covering of transparent plastic. Nell could feel the tension rise in the nurse as she lifted the mist tent and saw that there was no response in the tiny figure lying inside. Her panic transmitted itself to Nell with the speed of a contagion. For a second Nell felt rooted to the spot, then she jumped up.

‘I’ll get the doctor,’ she said, and started to run up the back stairs.