She stroked the pouch again, not sure why she was stroking so intently now, but Kaz was watching her and somehow she couldn’t stop. She felt the fabric sleek and soft between her fingers, the warmth emanating from it just the perfect temperature to touch. She stroked from the top of the pouch all around in a single, gentle sweep of her hand, and thought – insanely, given that they were in a lift that was about to reach their floor any second – about kneeling down to speak to him, whisper to him for the last time before he was born.

‘Rosie?’

It was Kaz. He must have been wondering what she was doing.

‘We’re here,’ he said as the lift doors slid open. ‘Dad! Pops!’

‘Wait a sec,’ she whispered, her hand falling from the pouch. ‘Hold on, Kaz?’

But he was already rushing to hug his pops, his dad’s arm around his shoulders, smiles passing between them. And Rosie suddenly knew what it was she’d been hoping to feel, why she couldn’t stop stroking the pouch, now that he’d stepped away and the pouch was beyond her reach. She’d wanted to feel Will move. Their baby Will, who was going to be a cellist and speak twenty languages and have her red-brown hair and Kaz’s dimples – she’d wanted to feel him kicking with his little feet just before he was born, perhaps reaching out his hand, as she was so convinced that he did sometimes, to touch hers. She’d wanted, one last time, to feel him move.

How silly, she thought, as she stepped out of the lift to join her family and they walked together to their birthing room. There were balloons on the door handle, brightly coloured flowers in one of those tall vases beside the entrance. In a few minutes he’d be born, her baby Will, and she could spend the rest of her life watching him move.

James Quentin stepped out of the lift on the research floor, keyed his pin number on the entry pad and walked into the anteroom. His coat was still hanging there – he’d forgotten to take it with him. And forgotten to notice the cold. But he removed his jumper now, unlaced each shoe and placed them in his locker before pulling on his cleanroom boots and stepping over the bench into the gowning area.