Eva picked up her coffee, expecting it to scald her tongue again, but it didn’t. The coffee was rich and she held it in her mouth for a moment – as though savouring it would bring James Quentin to the cafe, along with the certainty of what to do.

‘You try.’

She’d been carrying her mum’s address book with her for two days. Since finding it she hadn’t wanted to let it out of her sight. It felt like a connection, the one thing still joining them together despite the soil between them – the handwriting, the notes she’d made beside certain entries. Sometimes she reached into her bag just to check it was still there, ran her finger over the comforting creases in the spine. Without showing any of this sentiment, she passed it to Piotr.

‘He’s under Q,’ she said. ‘For Quentin.’

He flicked through, overshot then pushed the pages back until the address book was lying open at Q in his palm.

She looked again at the door, willed it to open while she sipped her coffee.

‘Erm … Eva?’

‘What?’

‘Have you seen this?’

And she knew what it was before her eyes moved to the page – she’d known all along, but had forgotten, or chosen not to remember, because for some reason she hadn’t wanted to go there. To his home. But that was where they would have to go. If he didn’t turn up.

She looked down at her empty cup.

‘Want some of mine?’ Piotr said, offering a half-full cup of caffeinated milk with a smile. ‘Don’t think I can handle it after all …’

She put her hands on his over the handles of the giant cup, and steered it down to the table.

‘Are we going to try his home?’ she said.

‘I think we’re going to try his home.’

‘Then let’s go.’

Karl had not slept in forty-eight hours. He had lain in bed. He had tried the sofa, the spare room that had once been Kaz’s bedroom. He’d leaned back in his armchair in the lounge and closed his eyes and prayed that he could sleep, just for the fleeting peace it would bring. He’d stumbled his way into the painted room, unable to call it the baby’s room even in his mind, surrounded himself with the sea creatures and distant stars, curled up on the floor beneath them. None of it made any difference. The scene in the birthing centre played over and over in his mind, as he imagined things he could have done to help despite knowing there was nothing anyone could have done by the time they were assembled in that room, waiting, expectantly.