We whirl into action: I take the ground floor and basement, and Tom looks after the rest of the house. Humidity and the heat of summer have caused the floorboards in the kitchen near the sink to buckle, so I throw an expensive grey and white rug from the dining room over the offending area. Upstairs, Tom puts all the batteries back in the smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, which chirp in the middle of the night at random intervals for no reason we’ve ever been able to find, and turns on the lights in our bedroom from the bedside dimmers to hide the fact that when you use the main wall switch, they flicker.

‘Did you put the suitcases in front of the dodgy air handler in the basement?’ Tom asks, when we meet back downstairs with the kids.

‘Yes. Has anyone seen my phone?’

‘Christ, Mum,’ Meddie says. ‘Again?’

We spend a fruitless five minutes looking for it before Tom thinks to call my number and I track it to the top of the cistern in the downstairs bathroom.

Time is short and we hustle the kids out to the car. Meddie’s arm is still in a sling, and Peter solicitously helps her with her seatbelt and checks she’s comfortable against the extra cushions I put in the car. Tom throws an approving glance at him, and then looks meaningfully at me: see, I told you it was nothing to worry about.

This is our first excursion since Meddie’s accident, and Tom has decided on brunch at the Pizza Express on the King’s Road, because this is what normal families do, and we are a normal family. It takes us a while to find a parking space nearby: in the end, Tom ruthlessly nips in and steals one from a car patiently waiting with its indicators on.

‘Nice one, Dad,’ Meddie says.

The other vehicle beeps angrily at us, and then drives on.

I’m just sorting out the parking meter when Tom comes up behind me and nudges my arm.

‘Isn’t that—?’

Across the road, Harper Conway is in animated discussion with a man half-hidden in the doorway of an office block. As we watch, she leans towards him and wreathes her arms around his neck.

The man with her isn’t her husband.

It’s Stacey’s.

chapter 22

stacey

Felix knows better than to hit her where it shows. He’s skilled at causing her pain without leaving marks. He punches her in the kidneys, or kicks her between her legs.

She’s miscarried twice since they had Archie.