‘Introduce Ces to who?’ Zach looked up, baffled.

‘I just said!’ A shake of cinnamon. ‘Willow Jackson. Lives in one of the big houses across the square. Don’t really know exactly why she’s coming to your school, but she’ll be out of her depth, I expect, and she’s going to need a nice friend or two—’

‘Nice?’ he deadpanned. ‘I’m all about nice, Mum.’

‘Course you are, my darling,’ I kissed his head and poured the milk into his hedgehog mug. ‘You always have been. Now, bed.’

As I pulled the blind tighter against the sodium fizz of the street light, I couldn’t quite see the corner Melissa had been watching so intently.

I didn’t know that Melissa had been waiting desperately; I couldn’t know – at this point.

But I did know something wasn’t quite right with my friend. The fact she hadn’t waited for me was so unlike her, and I’d sensed a tension in her I wasn’t used to.

She’d been so good to me the last few years. I must, I thought drowsily, relieved to feel sleep finally arriving, I really must talk to her; ask what might be going on to make her seem so – uneasy.

I hoped she was all right, and, if I was honest with myself, the hope was more than a little selfish.

I hoped she was all right because I needed her to be.

Melissa

SATURDAY 15 JULY

When we all awoke the next morning – some of us far earlier than others, some of us, i.e. me, having barely slept – someone was at home in the new house for the first time: exactly as if he’d always been.

The much-discussed new neighbour: the man who’d arrived in the quiet of night, seen only by the foxes, me and a man texting by the bins at his gate, a man with very blue eyes and a clear gaze that had unnerved me.

A man who didn’t look at me with disapproval, as Rex always seemed to now, but with… curiosity?

And, after all that, it was an anti-climax, the new neighbour’s arrival. We went about our business as usual, his fast cars sped out of the underground garage and a cleaner went in and out sometimes, but he was barely seen.

And no one, of course, ever dared complain about the building works. Not even my husband Rex, or my rich yoga client, Nella.

As for me, I forgot about him quickly.

I had far more worrying things on my mind.

Ruby

‘I love a big one!’

I jumped, and the damp plastic went sliding through my hands, the giant Toblerone under my arm slipping as I tried to save either the milk or chocolate from falling.

‘Gotcha.’ His catch of the milk was deft. ‘Here. Sorry if I startled you! I meant the chocolate, of course.’

‘Thanks.’ I held my thumb over the tell-tale yellow reduced sticker as I retrieved the chocolate from the floor. ‘I was in a world of my own.’