Two years ago, she had been alone in the world. A mother with two lost sons. Now one has come back to her, like a wonderful gift. And she has a new friend, Frank, not to mention Rowan, with her wacky baccy and her funny teas and her kindness.

Irene feels a jolt of pleasure at the thought of seeing Liam’s beautiful Pimchan and baby Aroon, who is such a big boy now.

She opens her case once again to check she has the Percy Pig sweeties Aroon likes. She knows she shouldn’t give them to him because they are bad for his little teeth, but isn’t that what grannies are for?

Irene re-zips the case and decides to have one last wee before Frank arrives. He’ll be here any minute and she doesn’t want to keep him waiting.

ELLIOTT

‘Not too high, Liv!’

My words fall on deaf ears. My daughter climbs like a little monkey to the next level of the climbing frame, giggling. I rush over and envelop her in my arms, pulling her away.

She’s about to object, but I swing her round and let her lie back, eyes shining as she holds out her arms to the sides, and smiling so all of her small, neat teeth are on show.

‘Down! Down, Daddy!’ she says, and I place her gently on her feet. She toddles over to the sandpit then, where she left her bucket before, and begins to dig furiously there, chatting in her own babble of half-coherent language as she does so.

I can hear the sound of the North Circular thundering by from here. It’s not that far from our flat either, but closer to this playground, Livi’s favoured one. I don’t mind it, despite all the news reports about the dangers of bringing up children in London. I worry about her lungs sometimes, breathing in all that crap every day.

But most of all I worry that she has retained something of that day in the farthest parts of her baby memory.

I had to come home, after. Back to London, where I belong.

I couldn’t stay in Casterbourne, of course, and now I’m not even sure I want to be near the English coast for some time yet. No, I am happier here, in the stinky, anonymous heart of the city where I am just Mr Little again to the Year Twos I teach in the slightly struggling school. I’m not the ‘tragic husband of multiple murderer Anya Ryland’ as one tabloid put it. Zoe had pulled the iPad out of my hand and almost slapped me for reading that one, in those terrible, black days afterwards when I could barely function as a human being, let alone a dad.

We see her often, her and her new girlfriend Hayley. She’s Scottish, loves kids. Livi adores her.