I needed a whole other run to work through whatever was going on there.

He was drinking a cup of coffee and looking at his phone. I slowed to a walk. He really wasn’t joking when he said Florence was an early riser. I checked my phone: 6.45 a.m. and she was already at the top of the climbing frame. I wiped the sweat off my forehead and headed towards them.

Florence was shouting, ‘Daddy!’ at Frederick and he was doing a good job of pretending he couldn’t hear her. She got up higher and used both her arms to wave.

And then she fell.

I jolted as if I could get there in time, as if I could catch her, even though she was twenty feet away. I held my breath; she landed awkwardly. There was a pause and then a loud wail. Jesus, poor Florence, that was a nasty fall. I sped up my pace, wanting to get there to see if I could do anything to help. And then I stopped. Frederick wasn’t moving. He was still on the bench. Phone in hand, coffee in the other.

What the hell? Did he have headphones in? I squinted. Nothing. But even if he did he couldn’t miss the fact that his daughter was lying on the ground, screaming in pain, just a few feet in front of him.

I stopped and stared as my mind raced.

One thought came clearest.

He must not see me.

I hid behind a tree. I needed to think.

There had to be a reason. A reason why a father wouldn’t go and comfort their child in agony. I looked at Florence. She was lying on the ground just whimpering now. I wanted to go and comfort her. To pick her up and tell her it would be OK.

And she wasn’t even my child.

I looked again at Frederick continuing to scroll through his phone.

Maybe she wasn’t his child?

But even if she wasn’t she was still an innocent child in distress. I watched him take another sip of coffee.

Was she a plant?

Or was he playing a part?

Put in position with a fake daughter?

I thought of Florence’s eyes. The blue-green streak. No, she was his. I thought of the way Camilla stroked her hair and whispered to her. She was definitely his and Camilla’s. So if the marriage wasn’t a sham and the children were theirs . . . What kind of father could ignore the cries of their badly injured daughter?

A sociopath.

That was the answer.

That was the only answer.

You had to be completely devoid of emotional response to not comfort a child. Any child. Let alone your own.