‘I’m meeting a seventy-year-old photographer to talk about her exhibition. It’s not a hen party,’ Erica says, more sharply than she probably should have. The timings are on the calendar on the wall, not that Marcus ever looks at it. She heads for Tom, to get the worst of the Weetabix off before it sets.

‘Are you nervous?’

He asks in a way that suggests he cares, rather than having a dig at her for being sharp with him. So she answers accordingly. (When did their marriage become a protracted diplomatic negotiation?) ‘Yes. No. I don’t know.’ She laughs at herself. ‘I don’t think nervous is the right word.’

He’s still looking at her, inviting her to say more.

‘I’ve worked so hard for this.’ Veronica Moon hasn’t been seen in public for decades – no exhibitions, no appearances, every invitation to lecture, to write or even to attend a party turned down. And yet she has agreed to this. Maybe she will talk about Leonie properly, at last. If she’s going to tell anyone the truth, it should be Erica, who would have said, when she began this project, that her interest was ninety per cent academic, ten per cent personal. This morning, those percentages are the other way round.

‘I know you have.’ He puts an arm round her, and kisses her forehead. She leans in, puts her head against his chest, listens to his heart, muffled by shirt and jacket and coat but hers to hear, if she concentrates. It’s as though they are twenty-five again, and nothing in the world could ever be as important as the love they found.

And for a moment – just a moment – it’s lovely.

Then Marcus steps away and picks up his briefcase. ‘Well, I can take over the babysitting from Mum if you’re not back.’

Either he has moved away before he felt her body stiffen, or he’s chosen to ignore it.

‘It’s not babysitting,’ she says, loudly enough to make both Marcus and Tom look towards her; identical pairs of blue-grey eyes.

‘What?’

‘It’s not babysitting. Tom is your child.’

Marcus puts a hand on the door handle, a clear sign that he doesn’t have time for this. ‘I know that. It’s just a figure of speech.’

It doesn’t feel like one, today. Erica was up twice during the night with Tom. Marcus says he will get up if she wakes him, but he always proves unwakeable. ‘A figure of speech that suggests I’m the only one with responsibility for our child.’