‘That’s why you would get yourself killed?’ I said. ‘Just for a sniff of some girl dog?’ I pushed my face close to his and he licked my nose, trying to make amends. ‘Listen to me. Don’t make me do it. I don’t want to take you to the vet’s, OK? I don’t want to have you . . . done. But I will if you keep throwing yourself into traffic.’

I didn’t speak to him for the rest of the walk. But as he did his morning business in West Smithfield and I read the inscriptions from Oliver Twist that cover all the benches, the passage about Bill Sykes dragging Oliver through Smithfield meat market, Stan kept stealing glances at me.

As if I, of all people, should understand.

Scout was up when we got back.

She was still in her pyjamas and was on a step stool in the kitchen, standing on tiptoes to rifle through the cupboards.

‘I’m making you breakfast,’ she said. ‘Jackson taught me to cook.’

‘What you making, Scout?’

‘Toasted jam sandwich.’

‘Sounds good. Don’t put your fingers in the toaster.’

She raised her eyebrows. ‘Duh.’

‘Need some help, angel?’

‘No.’

‘Looking forward to going back to school and seeing all your friends?’

‘I really need to concentrate now.’

‘Sorry.’

So Scout prepared our breakfast and Stan curled up in his dog basket and I got out plastic bags full of brand-new school clothes, and the iron, and long spools of name tags that ran on and on like all the days of my daughter’s childhood. Scout Wolfe, they said. Scout Wolfe, Scout Wolfe, Scout Wolfe.

And my eyes suddenly blurred over as I stood there with the iron and the name tags and the new school clothes, watching Scout liberally slapping strawberry jam over a slice of thick brown bread. Stan got up and padded into the kitchen, smacking his lips and correctly guessing that there would soon be stray pieces of bread falling from the sky.

I wiped at my eyes with the back of my hand and I stared dumbly at the name tags in my hand. Scout Wolfe, they said. Scout Wolfe.

And with all my heart I ached for a real family for Scout and for me, a mended family, a restored family, a family that looked like all the other families in the world, a family with nobody missing and nobody gone and nobody wandered off, and I longed for that new family as only a man who has lost his old family ever can.

Then Mrs Murphy came into the loft wearing her green winter coat, wishing everyone good morning, Scout and me and Stan, and saying that this was the first day that she’d felt the chill of autumn in the air, and she gently took the iron and the Scout Wolfe name tags from my hand.

‘Here,’ said Mrs Murphy.

‘I’m no good at it,’ I said.