‘There were all these rules, you know – pregnant women had to eat certain things, sleep a certain way, avoid pain relief, and if something went wrong …’

‘People used to blame the women?’

Cris nodded.

‘And FullLife are blaming our son?’ He was standing up now, and he had a new idea. ‘I’ll tell you whose fault it is. FullLife, that’s who. I’m going to give them a piece of my mind.’

Cris smiled, warmly. ‘I’m not sure that’s a good idea, Karl.’

‘I’m not letting them get away with this.’

‘We don’t know the full story—’

‘We know enough.’

Karl had picked up his wallet, was searching the side table for his car keys and glasses, neither of which he could find. He wasn’t entirely sure how to give a thirty-storey building full of people a piece of his mind – he’d never really given anyone a piece of his mind in his life – but it seemed, in that moment, to be the best, the only thing he could do. Cris was saying something about going to visit Kaz, but he wasn’t ready for that yet – he had to prove that he was able to do something. That he had stood up for his son. He found his glasses, which were on his head, and his car keys, which were in Cris’s hand.

‘Well, I’d better come with you,’ Cris said. ‘And to be honest, I think I’d better be the one to drive.’

The ground outside was frozen but the car started easily. Karl could feel his pulse beating in his neck. As they drove towards central London, he squinted through sunlight that made the world both hazy and impossible to look at straight on. It didn’t seem real. He was clutching his wallet, which had in it a photo of his family, of him and Cris and Kaz, and he kept picturing his father driving to help him, but the sun was in his eyes and he wasn’t able to see him as the cars passed each other on the reflective road.