“And it was fine. A friend had lent it to him as I told you; he wasn’t going to use it. I believed him, I thought you did.”

“I just wish I shared more of his life, Charley’s too, rather than a few minutes at the beginning and end of the day.” She dumps a box of washing powder in the trunk. “I feel excluded somehow.”

He hefts in the potatoes, slams the trunk, and gives her a bear hug. “Why not do a few of the school pickups? Melly and Eve share some already; you’d feel more included then.”

“I thought of that, but I wouldn’t have time to get round to all those schools,” she replies, getting into the car.

“They’ll be at the same ones soon.” Martin sounds surprised that she doesn’t know, but that’s exactly the point; she’s never there to know. “When Blake starts at the Charter next term, he’ll be with Poppy and Izzy; Charley’s already with Sorrel at Dulwich Hamlet.”

“Okay.” She stares out at the parking lot as Martin starts the engine. At least that way she’d get to exchange a few words with Eve, be part of it somehow. “I’ll try to swap for more early shifts.”

At home they make the journeys in the lift up and down until there are just a couple more bags left in the car. Charley and Blake beg Martin for one of his made-up bedtime stories. She watches them sprawl on the sofa, cuddling close to their father as he begins to weave a magical tale involving a heroine and dragons. She’ll manage the last things on her own; they look so happy together. She descends in the lift, hurries outside, then stops abruptly. The tall guy with the green-soled sneakers is standing near the door, a foot against the wall behind him. He turns to look at her, his eyes cold; menace seems to throb in the air between them. There’s a smaller boy by the path and another in the parking lot; there could be more in the shadows. She walks to the car, heart thumping, staring straight ahead. She takes the bags from the trunk, locks it, and walks back. The boy by the door has moved; now he’s blocking her way, head lowered, like an animal about to charge. She steps around him, catching a guttural laugh, more of a growl than a laugh.

She reaches the doorway and, once inside, runs into the lift, pressing the button to the thirteenth floor. She leans against the side of the lift as it rises; her legs feel separate from her body, as though they might give way. Martin needn’t know. He’d tell the landlady, though there’s really nothing to tell; things might get worse. They put the shopping away, then Martin goes to bed, but she makes herself reach for her notebook. Her fingers are still trembling, so it’s difficult to form the letters at first, but gradually she becomes absorbed in the world on the page. The only sounds she can hear are the familiar ones of her husband snoring, Charley breathing, Blake muttering in his sleep; her family close by, practically within touching distance. The threat outside fades as she writes; gradually it becomes something she might have imagined, almost as if it had happened to somebody else.