‘Mum, it’s me. I need you. I … I need to talk to you. Please.’ I hang up and scrub my hands over my face. I can’t let this happen. I can’t let them take Mina and Leo.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it’s all wrong and I jumped to conclusions. These are the things I am running over and over in my head, mumbling them to myself as I hurry towards preschool to collect Mina. I am late again, but if I hurry, I think I can make it.

‘Allie? Al, wait!’ A voice calls as I enter the High Street in the village, and I turn to see Tara headed towards me. ‘Where are you off to in such a rush?’

‘To collect Mina,’ I say in confusion. ‘Aren’t you late for James? We’d better hurry.’

‘We still have fifteen minutes,’ Tara laughs. ‘I’ve left Karl at home with Rufus – he’s been really unwell, a gastro thing, we had to take him in to the William Harvey last night.’ She looks tired as I look more closely at her. There are dark circles under her eyes and her mouth looks drawn. ‘I just wanted to get out for a few minutes, you know.’ I realize now for the first time, she has no pram with her.

‘I’m sorry. I hope he feels better soon.’ Something chimes in the back of my mind when she mentions a gastro thing, but I can’t put the pieces together. All I can see is the screen on the laptop: two adults, two children, Dabolim Airport.

‘Oh, he’s on the mend,’ Tara says, flicking her keys in her hand. My eyes are drawn to the keychain that dangles there. ‘He’ll be right as rain in a day or two.’ The keychain is a silver pentacle, identical to the one Naomi has on her keys. As if summoned, Naomi steps out of the doors of The Daisy Chain, her purse in one hand as she walks towards the supermarket next door.

‘You know her, don’t you?’ I nod in Naomi’s general direction and Tara turns to see. I watch her to see her reaction, but she gives nothing away, no sign of guilt.

‘Naomi? Yeah, I know her a little. Not terribly well though.’ Well enough to invite her to your house, I think. ‘Isn’t she a friend of yours? I thought you two were quite close. Good friends.’

‘We are,’ I say. Were.

‘I thought so.’ Tara starts walking towards the preschool as Naomi disappears inside the shop. ‘I knew I knew her from somewhere, and then I saw her and Rav having a drink in the pub not long after the baby was born. Wetting his head, no doubt,’ she laughs.

‘Really? Which pub?’ There is a roaring in my ears and I suddenly feel very hot.