If Peppa was using her daughter’s crap to smuggle information to Tenebris, all power to her. But I was pretty sure the suspicious behaviour and suspect package could be explained away as a rush to prevent an accident and a clearing up of the aftermath.

Either way I wasn’t going to rummage through it to check. I handled enough at home.

*

I was on my motorbike back to the Platform when my phone rang. I looked down at the screen as I approached a red light. It was Gigi’s nursery. I clicked answer and a voice crackled through my Bluetooth.

‘You need to come immediately.’ The line broke off slightly and I just heard ‘unacceptable’.

‘Ms Yvonne? I can’t hear you? Is everything OK?’

‘I . . . really . . . Gigi nearly killed someone.’ That last line came in very clear. I screeched to a halt and turned the bike around.

As I sped across London, going through nearly every red light, all I could think was: nature v nurture. Clearly it’s in her genes. How could the violence of my working life already have filtered through to my two-year-old daughter? The biting was the start. And now . . . Now what? What the hell could she have done? Water-boarded Felix at the water-play table? Tried to suffocate Sophia in the sandpit? Stabbed little Lulu with the safety-scissors? My mind burst with toddler Hunger Games scenarios.

*

A solitary peanut was placed in the middle of the table.

‘Do you not think . . .’ I cleared my throat. ‘Do you not think this is a slight over-reaction?’

Yvonne observed me silently. ‘This is a nut-free environment. It is on all our literature. It is proudly written underneath our sign in the entrance hall.’

‘Is there any child here, right now, who has a nut allergy?’

‘That is not the point. We have rules for a reason.’

‘I understand that. And, Ms Yvonne, I totally respect that. But just hear me out. If currently no one at this nursery has a nut allergy, Gigi accidentally bringing in a nut, which must have been in one of her pockets, could not be classed as having “nearly killed someone”.’

‘There could be children who have nut allergies that have not yet manifested. We are not going to have children put in danger. Not on my watch.’ She straightened her back and puffed out her chest.

I had come across people like Yvonne before. There was no point arguing with her. Health and safety was her religion. And she worshipped at the altar of form-filling and box-ticking. I just needed to pay my dues and get back to work.

‘I’m very sorry. This will never happen again. We will become a nut-free household – just in case any of us are perhaps allergic and it has not yet manifested.’ I tried to smile.

I saw Frederick at the head of the queue for picking up on the way out. ‘Everything OK?’