He spoons another mouthful of ice-cream into his mouth. She wishes this boy had been born hers. They could have done so much together. He really is an exceptionally good-looking child, with those amber eyes and sweep of tawny hair. At ten years old he’s already learned to weaponise his looks: she can only imagine how dangerous, how effective, he’ll be in a few years’ time.

‘They know,’ he tells her, slyly. ‘Harper saw you in the car.’

The cold coffee starts to drain, and she puts the plunger back beneath the sink and straightens up. ‘Knowing and proving are very different things, Peter,’ she says.

‘You don’t have to worry about Millie,’ he says. ‘She won’t say anything.’

It’s odd hearing him use his mother’s first name.

‘I’m not worried,’ she says.

‘You should be,’ Peter says. ‘You should be worried about Harper. She talks too much. I hear her at night recording her vlogs. She talks about you.’

Stacey pictures him creeping through the house in the dark, listening at doors, hiding in shadows. She hopes for her sake Harper locks her bedroom door.

Peter gulps his Coke, and then lets out a small burp and grins. Sometimes it’s easy to forget he’s still a child. ‘What are we going to do?’ he asks.

‘We aren’t going to do anything.’

‘You’ve let it drag on too long,’ Peter says. ‘You know what you have to do. You just need to do it.’

Sometimes it’s easy to forget he’s not like other children. ‘It’s not that simple,’ she says.

‘Yes, it is. Stop pretending you haven’t decided. You know you’re going to do it anyway, so just get on with it.’

‘Your mother will be here soon,’ Stacey says.

‘I could do something,’ he says, as if she hasn’t spoken. ‘Before Harper goes home. We have to stop her or she’ll ruin everything. You said I was a big help last time,’ he adds. ‘You said you couldn’t have done it without me.’

Stacey glances down the street. She doesn’t know what’s keeping Millie: she should be here by now. ‘I shouldn’t have involved you,’ she tells Peter.

She’s not thinking of him when she says that. She’s aware she took an insane risk, an unforgivable risk, by involving a ten-year-old. She still isn’t quite sure why she did it. Perhaps she was just tired of being alone.