I don’t wrestle with the decision. I’ve always lived in the shades of grey that lie somewhere between right and wrong. Peter is my son. It doesn’t matter to me if he is good or bad. As long as he is safe.

Tom doesn’t trust Stacey or her truce, but she knows what I will do to protect Peter, and so she knows my protection extends to her now, too. I can’t threaten her without endangering him. And from her point of view I’ve served my purpose: the evidence swirling around me has disturbed enough sediment to muddy the waters for the police. We’ve achieved an unlikely stasis.

On Sunday afternoon, I tell Harper it’s time to go home. She protests because she thinks that morally my house is hers, you can’t send me back to that tiny flat, but I’m done with this now. I’m done with the Glass House. I’m done with it all.

Monday is a much better day. On Monday I’m back in theatre, back where I belong: I’m on my feet for more than nine hours without food or a break performing three complex surgeries back-to-back, but Monday is not a difficult day. When I finish I feel energised and revitalised, and after I’ve checked on my last patient I change into my running clothes, deciding to leave my Audi in the car park overnight and run home.

I’m lacing up my new trainers – they’re still uncomfortably stiff – when my phone beeps with an incoming text from Tom.

Peter wasn’t at pickup. Does he have practice?

It’s forty minutes since school ended. Peter doesn’t have any after-school activities on a Monday: he should have been waiting for Tom to collect him as usual. The first wings of anxiety beat in my chest.

Maybe he got the tube with M? I text back.

She’s home. He isn’t with her.

I call Peter, but it goes straight to voicemail without even ringing. I tell myself his battery is probably dead from watching too many TikTok videos beneath his desk during class.

The Find My Phone feature is enabled on both the kids’ mobiles. Even if Peter’s phone is switched off, it will give me his last location by pinging off other users’ phones. A minute later I have my answer: the school, which tells me nothing I didn’t already know.

My phone vibrates again.

It’s from Stacey this time: a photograph of my son sitting at her kitchen counter eating ice-cream.

The bird of anxiety takes flight.

We had a deal, I text.

Keep your hair on. He just turned up at my door. Come and get him.

Tom offers to collect Peter himself when I update him with the news, but I tell him I’ll go. I need to make sure Stacey understood I meant what I said yesterday.