‘No. No, it’s better if we both go to work. We can’t hide away. We have to get on with our lives, Jamie.’ She shook her head. ‘God, I feel so pitiful. I hadn’t even had the baby. Every day I see people whose children are ill. Some of them are dying; some of them do die. Those people have given birth; they’ve seen their children grow, seen them speak and walk.’

‘But you’ve had a miscarriage. That’s like…’ He couldn’t say it.

‘It’s not exactly the same, Jamie. My whole life with this baby was imagined. It was something in the future. A promise – a promise that has been broken.’ She looked up at him. ‘We can have another baby, can’t we? Can’t we? And this time we’ll be somewhere safe.’

She pressed her face against his shoulder.

‘Yes. We will.’

I’m going to make this place safe, he thought. And then we’ll try again.

He drove Kirsty to the hospital, then on to work. His knuckles were white where he gripped the steering wheel so tightly. He had the radio up loud. The people outside the car – walking along the streets, coming out of shops, getting off buses – seemed like phantoms, blurs of pink and brown, colours running into one another, like rain on a chalk pavement drawing. The music was loud but he couldn’t hear the tune; the lyrics were a babble. It was just noise.

He strode into the building, into the lift, up to the fourth floor. He looked at himself in the lift’s mirror. His face was the colour of undercooked fish; his hair was sticking up in tufts; his tie was crooked, his shirt only half tucked in. He ran a hand through his hair, tried to straighten his tie. It was a half-hearted attempt, and a second later the lift chimed to announce its arrival at his floor. He stood there for a second, looking out. Everyone seemed very busy, moving around in fast-motion, industrious worker bees droning among the humming computers. Above the hum, Jamie could hear the cries of the baby from last night, a sound buried at the back of his brain, pulsing beneath the surface of his skull. How could they have done it? How could anyone be that sick, that cruel? He felt anger boil up inside him again. He breathed deeply.

There was Mike, sitting at his desk, sorting through his in-tray. Jamie strode over to him.

‘Mike.’

He looked up. ‘Jamie, hi. I didn’t think you’d be in today. Are you alright?’

‘I’m fine.’