‘Don’t what? Don’t get angry? My God. I could have … I nearly …’ He looks at me and shakes his head. ‘I’m so sorry, Mum.’

He walks back out the back door without saying another word. Kira runs after him.

‘Should we go after him?’ Mark asks.

I shake my head. ‘No, let him go.’

Tuesday 27th January 2015

Jackdaw44: You can’t ignore me for ever you know.

Chapter 56

It is the morning after DS Forbes’s visit. I didn’t stay long after Jake left. The decision to go back to Mum’s didn’t come easy. I wanted to wait for him to return, to check he was okay, but that would have meant more time alone with Mark and I knew he’d ask me questions that I’m not ready to answer yet. Questions about the future. Questions about us.

Seven months ago there’s no way I would have left my home when my family needed me. My place was in the heart of the family. I had to know where everyone was, what they were doing and why. Nothing got past me.

At least that’s what I thought.

The kids called me a control freak. Mark did too but only ever in a jokey way. I’m no psychotherapist but I can’t help wondering if I’m like that because of my childhood. Mum’s crap was everywhere, life was chaotic and I lived in a constant state of insecurity, never quite sure when the next argument would be or if it would all get too much for Dad and he’d leave us. I promised myself that my kids would never feel like that. Their mum and dad were going to stick around, no matter what. I’d stick around, no matter what.

My first fugue, when I went to Weston, was the first time I’d gone anywhere alone for a long, long time. Sometimes, when the kids were fighting and screaming and Mark was hiding away in the garage, I’d fantasize about running away. About how I’d go to the train station and buy a ticket to St Ives or Brighton or Weymouth, and book a room in a hotel with a double bed just for me and spend the weekend walking along the seafront, drinking coffee in quaint cafés and lying on the beach reading books. I’d breathe in the sea air and I’d daydream about my other life, the one where I turned left instead of right. Me, single and childless, training as a nurse and then going to work for the Red Cross or Médecins Sans Frontières.