‘I’m sorry to ask. It’s just – he might have panicked, done something stupid. It’s a lot to take in. You say he was planning to leave the wife?’

‘He promised. He was looking at places to rent, even. He was going to go home and tell her right then, and I’d tell Nick. God! Thank Christ I didn’t.’

‘If you had, you might be already settled, you know. Free of him.’

I frowned. Nora was so strange today, offering these odd bits of advice that I’d never heard from her before. ‘But where would I live? I don’t have a job. Plus, Nick’s good at all that legal stuff. I bet he’d find a way to get the baby.’

Nora made a noise of frustration. ‘Suzi, it’s the twenty-first century. They don’t take babies from their mothers.’ She hesitated. ‘Unless they’re in prison, of course.’

I stood up, almost knocking over my tea. Nora righted it. ‘Oh God. I can’t go to prison, can I? I didn’t do anything! I just got dropped off on the verge!’

‘They don’t know that, of course.’

‘Alright, so what do I do? Please, Nora. You’re so clear-minded and I’m so – my brain’s like tangled-up wool. What do I do?’

‘Do you really want my advice?’

I leaned forward, thinking how strange it was that this woman I barely knew was now my lifeline, the only person I could confide in, who could help me out of this mess I’d made for myself. ‘Please, Nora. Tell me what I should do.’

I waited all through the day, my panic gradually subsiding to a dull pain. I jumped at every car that came down the lane, every ring of the phone – Nick’s mother again, PPI. The police didn’t call. They would have come before, surely, anyway, if they knew about me. You had died months ago. I must have left no trace on your life after all. It could be like I never existed. It could be like it never happened – except for that line on the pregnancy test.

The weather was still bone-cold, and I spent hours trudging round the countryside, looking for Poppet again, finding no trace. My ankle throbbed with every step, and my bump weighed me down, but I made myself go on, trying to atone. Not just for losing the dog. For everything. It was chilling how little there was near us. Apart from Nora, we’d have to walk for an hour to reach the nearest house. The landscape was nothing but fields and scrubby woodland, and the sense of loneliness intensified with each step. I hadn’t realised what good company a dog was, as annoying as I found him. Now there was nothing. Not a single living breath except my own.