The hand gripping the brolly was growing numb and rain was starting to trickle down inside the collar of his jacket. Lucas could feel his shirt sticking unpleasantly to his back. He ran a hand over his damp face, remembering with a shudder the flecks of Charlie Giddings’ spittle, flying out with all his schoolboy invectives and threats. Moira was his little girl, and he would die protecting her. If Lucas thought he could hide behind his grand job, he could think again. In the end Lucas had stopped trying to object, letting it play out, before delivering one heartfelt denial of all wrongdoing and turning on his heel.

Lucas swapped hands, putting the cold one into the warmth of his pocket and closing his fingers round his phone. As he chewed the options over, debating what to do, a tall, bearded man with a mane of curly, brown hair and an athletic body, wearing dark jeans and a faded denim jacket, emerged from the house on the other side of Esther’s, carrying a bulging plastic bag. He lifted a tarpaulin covering a small motorbike parked by the front door, apparently just to check on it, before hopping over the rather higher picket fencing on his side in order to follow in the steps of the troupe who had already presented themselves at Esther’s door. As it swung open, Lucas caught a proper snapshot of Esther, wearing a blue shirt, her fair hair looking long and wild, before this guest was also ushered in. A coffee morning, then? A neighbourhood watch meeting? Or a bloody orgy for all he knew. He knew zilch about her, Lucas realised, a strange dismay washing through him.

He turned and headed slowly back towards the railway bridge, closing up the brolly because it was such a fight and he no longer cared. He felt slightly stunned by the morning’s events. The miscalculation of the meeting, then spying on Esther like some sad voyeur. Of course she had carved out a new life. For two years he had known that and believed himself indifferent to it. Yet to know something and to see it in action were two very different things.