Margot sits in the corner of the room watching Heather with her family. Adam is sitting beside his wife’s bed and little Ethan is on her lap, trying to nuzzle into her neck while she reads him his favourite story, Guess How Much I Love You. She resembles the picture of contentment as she rests her cheek against his soft curly hair while he sucks his thumb. Adam watches them with a little smile on his lips. He’s brought in some of the daffodils that he grows in a part of the field they use as their allotment, and they fill the room with a scent that Margot has always found slightly cloying. It looks like a normal family scene, except Margot knows it’s not. The police officer’s presence reminds her that her daughter is under arrest for murder. Tomorrow they will come in to interview her and Margot knows she will be charged. Their lawyer has said she’ll fight for diminished responsibility, but even if that’s the case and Heather gets the lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter instead of murder, she’ll still have to go to prison or a secure hospital under the Mental Health Act. She’ll have to leave her husband and her son and go away for goodness knows how long.

Will Adam wait for her? How much does he love her daughter? She’s always found him so hard to read. He’s a good father, she can’t dispute that, and she’s always thought him a good husband to Heather. But they’d argued a lot since Ethan was born, and the night before the incident – Margot can’t bring herself to call it anything else – he’d walked out on her, taking his son with him. Why? He was going to tell her the night she got that phone call from DCI Ruthgow, but they were distracted by the possibility that Flora’s body had been found. And she’s not had the chance to ask him again.

Eventually Ethan starts to get wriggly and tired and Adam picks him up, but Ethan holds out his arms to Heather. His little chin wobbles. He doesn’t want to leave his mummy and it breaks Margot’s heart.

‘It’s okay, little man. Mummy will see you tomorrow,’ says Heather, smiling encouragingly, although Margot can see it’s killing her having to say goodbye. Adam bends over to kiss Heather and she leans forwards to hug Ethan once again, smelling his head with her eyes closed.

It’s not until they leave that Heather allows the tears to run down her cheeks.

Margot’s by her bedside in an instant. ‘I know, sweetheart,’ she says, pressing a tissue into her daughter’s hand. ‘It’s hard. I know.’

‘I can’t bear being apart from him.’ She sobs.

‘Hopefully not for much longer.’