Sara almost refused before she realised she did indeed want one. A lot. He fetched two cans of Harp lager from the fridge, opened them both. Sitting down, he took a swallow straight from the can. Sara did likewise, the beer fizzing icy-cold on her tongue.

“What now?” Tony asked.

She thought about it for a moment before realising she had no answer to the question. “I don’t know,” she said.

“You could go back home to England,” he said. “Have you still got family there?”

“My mother and a younger brother. Near Bath. We haven’t spoken for a couple of years. Our relationship is . . . difficult, I suppose you could say. I could get a flight, but I’ve no cards to pay for it. Damien keeps control of the money.”

“I could book it for you. I haven’t much, but I could cover that.”

“Thank you, but I think I should stay.”

“Why?”

“Because . . .”

She looked down at the table, the beer can held there between her hands. She had an answer, but it seemed foolish, and she didn’t want to say it out loud.

“You can tell me,” Tony said.

She lifted her gaze to see him looking back, and she believed him.

“Because I feel like I’m needed here.”

“Who needs you?”

“Mary,” she said. “The children.”

She could not hold his gaze as she waited for some scornful dismissal.

Instead, he said, “If that’s how you feel, then you have to go with it.”

Sara placed her hand on his forearm and squeezed it. It rested there a moment too long before he got up from the table. He drained the last of his lager.

“I don’t know about you,” he said, “but I’m having another one.”

A mild but pleasing beer buzz had helped Sara fall asleep in the spare room, curled on top of the covers, her cheek resting on her hands. The vibration of her phone woke her at close to two in the morning. She checked the display: Damien calling again. He had tried a few times around ten, then every thirty minutes until midnight. As she thumbed the red reject icon, she pictured him pacing the kitchen floor, one hand balled into a fist, the other pressing the phone to his ear. She thanked God she had disabled the location services, or Damien would have been at Tony’s door by now. He would figure it out eventually, though.

Sara rolled onto her back and pulled the light duvet around herself. She had slept for more than three hours, probably the longest stretch she’d had in weeks. Maybe she could get some more before morning light crept through the blinds. Her mind had begun to drift when the phone vibrated again. She rejected the call. A minute or two later, another vibration, and this time it was a different caller: Francie Keane. She rejected his call, too, then powered off the phone.