‘Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit –’ said Emma, and scrabbled back against the counter, weak-legged, grabbing at her bag and the pushchair pulling them towards her.

‘I’m really sorry,’ said Bea. ‘It’s OK.’

A policeman forced the door open, another peered in through the glass.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Bea again. Emma was backed up, crouching against the counter with the pushchair.

Bea went towards the policeman in the doorway, her hands open in front of her and said, ‘I think a lady called you?’

‘We had a report of a weapon,’ he said, looking past her and seeing Emma.

‘It’s all right, she’s not – dangerous,’ said Bea completely sure, suddenly frightened. ‘She’s just in a mess –’

But then there were six policemen and a policewoman in the shop. Quickly, they closed in on Emma. They asked her where the knife was, and told her to keep still and asked about the knife again. They tried to separate her from the baby but she wouldn’t let go of the pushchair. Panicking, surrounded, she seemed to dissolve in front of Bea’s eyes, transforming from herself into an object. Bea backed slowly away towards the wall feeling sick with herself, and guilty. After a few minutes, a policeman came over and took her name and asked her what had happened, and then the woman who ran the shop came out from where she had been hiding, somewhere out the back, and gave them her details, while the girl, surrounded, began to fight.

‘You bitch, you cunt,’ she said, as the police took hold of her arms. They prised her hands off the pushchair. A policewoman bent to look inside.

‘What’s his name?’ she asked

‘Get off him,’ said Emma, crying.

‘I really don’t think she was going to do anything,’ said Bea to the policemen, but nobody was listening.

They took Emma out into the street, three of them holding her, having to drag her with them.

‘Don’t worry about it. We know her,’ one of the policemen said to Bea, smiling. ‘She’s always around here.’

‘Is there anything I can do?’ said Bea. ‘I work in psychotherapy, just down the road.’

She wouldn’t normally have said that, like she thought she was important, but she felt embarrassed by her humanity, and interfering, and she wanted him to know she wasn’t just a member of the public being sentimental. Even as she thought it she knew that was exactly what she was.

The police stayed around for a few minutes and unstrapped the baby from the pushchair and put him into one of the cars. They couldn’t work out how to fold it up, and struggled with it, and with Emma, getting her into the van, demonstrating to the small crowd gathered that they were not taking pleasure in overpowering her. It was easy, they were so much stronger. The matter-of-fact way they dealt with her looked more brutal than if they had been angry. They forced her into the van calmly, and slammed the doors on her, then the van and the two cars drove away, and the people on the pavement carried on and the life of the street was normal again, with nothing to show they had been there except for Bea, standing there, watching, until they had disappeared. A violent criminal would have gained more attention. There was no easier person to discard than a damaged girl. The woman who worked in the shop came out and stood next to her.