‘Oh,’ I said – and I didn’t feel clever, I must say, not at all – and I had the sense she was somehow right to warn me. ‘But what was—?’

‘Don’t ask me please.’ She held a dramatic hand out to stop my questions, shaking her sleek black hair free from its band.

Before I could speak, she’d slammed the gate behind her.

I watched the young woman disappear into the shadows of the square, and then I turned and headed home in the opposite direction.

And so I never saw the figure in a hood on the near corner, beneath the cherry tree, his bike leaning against his thigh, checking his phone as if about to make a call. I missed him look up as a car turned into the road slowly, idling opposite the big house just finished by the builders, before they pushed off into the night. Only much later would it make sense.

Fixed in my mind, instead, was the image of that bewildered-looking child, leaning out into the night, a deadly arrow trained on us all.

Melissa

Out on the street, a car backfired loudly, and, horribly on edge already, my hand slid across the shiny lid of the face cream; I fumbled not to drop it.

At least, I hoped it was a car and not a gun, which wouldn’t be all that unlikely round here, these days – shootings as well as stabbings being on the increase, year on year.

And that grave-faced little boy in the window at Nella’s house – that had been a bit of a shock for us all – whatever that smooth dad said.

Oh God – and what about Ruby?

I should have waited for her obviously, but Rex had been hurrying me, his hand firm on my arm, and honestly, I had been desperate myself to get home after an evening I’d found nothing but trying.

Digging my phone from my tracksuit bottoms, I texted Ruby.

Home safe?

Three bubbles…

Yes ta.

More bubbles.

Sleep well hon 🙂

I hearted back, before allowing myself a smidgeon of the shiny blue tub that had cost more than a week’s food shop; whose packaging promised things I doubted it could ever deliver. There was a dire contradiction between what Rex expected me to look like and what he expected me to spend.

Carefully I massaged cream onto my top lip and round my eyes, neither of which were winning the slow but inevitable battle, as the first snore emitted from next door.

I peered through the crack in the en suite door at my sleeping – thank God – husband; at his crack, I grimaced, looking at him sprawled across the bed: sheet just over his hips, belly out, head twisted so awkwardly I could practically see down his gullet.

I almost giggled, almost but not quite, because I still felt more tense than an abductor stretch at the gym I taught in on Mondays.

I’d had to go all out to placate him for that silly joke I’d made leaving Nella’s house, about Willow. I’d lost my concentration – only for a second there – but long enough to slip up.