And now she was sitting across the table from him in the half-empty train carriage. But there was something – a thought, a fear – forming in his mind. Because in all his frantic research after their baby’s death, through all his pain and anger, there was one thing he’d never thought to blame: the pouch itself. They’d been having a natural birth, so he tried to blame the natural birth, but …

The realisation came slowly. He had been born via a pouch. Eva had been born via a pouch. The parents affected by the stillbirths had all been pouch babies. Could it be … was it possible that it wasn’t a problem with the pouches, at least not the ones they’d all been thinking about. Could it be that the problem was a change in biology, taking a generation or two to appear … that it was there already, in everyone born via the pouch, in Rosie, in Kaz, in …?

‘Are you all right?’ she said, standing up, stepping around the table and sitting down next to him.

‘No,’ he replied. And that was all he could manage, right then – though he would tell her everything he’d been thinking, when he felt able to speak without breaking down – and it was enough for now, because it was the truth.

Daphne knocked on her mum’s door. It had taken her a while to do it. She’d thought that perhaps her mum needed space, so she’d left her alone.

In a way she’d been glad to spend time with Rosie, without Holly constantly trying to show her how to mother better. It was unusual for her mum not to come down for breakfast – Sunday breakfast too, always a family gathering – but it was not unheard of. She’d been alone for hours now, though, and the past two days had been so hard and perhaps her mum’s feelings had been lost among it all. Perhaps her mum was hurting too, and no one had noticed. Had she forgotten to show kindness to her mother?

She knocked on the door, a little louder this time.

‘Mum?’ she called. ‘I’m making tea. Do you want a cup?’

There was no answer. So Daphne did what she’d done the day before for Rosie – she opened a closed door and stepped inside.

Except her mum was not there.

The room wasn’t that big. And clearly it was empty.

Daphne looked at the bed, which was neatly made. The window, which was closed. She looked at the wardrobe with the long full-length mirror and opened the door to check. Her mum was – unsurprisingly – not hiding inside.