“It would be anonymous to start with,” said the officer. “But then yes, if it progressed to court, it would become clear. After your encounter last night, and the man’s threat, I imagine he’d expect it came from yourselves anyway, though of course there have been those other complaints.”

George put his arm around Veronica’s shoulders. “We can’t be afraid,” he said solemnly. “That’s not us. We have to take control of the situation.”

Through her fear, Veronica nodded.

“It may be,” interjected the officer, “that we don’t actually have to go that route at all.”

“Excuse me?”

“We may be able to move the family on, you see, if they’re not the registered tenants, who of course is supposed to be this Milly Peck. From the sound of things, they’re not a suitable, family, for this, property.”

George raised his eyebrows and exchanged a glance with Veronica, both of them noticing the slight, knowing inflection in the officer’s words. Not, apparently, a socialist. But it was true, they weren’t suitable. There was drugs, and they drank, and they fought, and they screamed, and they didn’t work, and they were dirty; these were not the kind of people she and George and the rest of the residents on the street had paid millions to live next to. Now, here was a chance to move them on without personal dispute, without culpability.

Nevertheless, “Move them on to where?” asked Veronica. “Where would they go?”

“That’s to be determined,” said the officer.

“And what about the children? The woman?”

George shot her a warning look. “As we said, we can’t be sure about what’s going on, with the children, we didn’t actually see any violence,” he hurried.

“But we do hear things,” pressed Veronica, patchwork pumping her blood. “And the boy did have a cut. And was alone looking after the toddler when he should’ve been at school. I don’t think it can be a very, wholesome, place for them.”

“Yes,” said the officer. “Yes, that’s all noted. It’s not so unusual in some families I’m afraid, but I’m going to pass it on to our team and if they determine that there’s a critical threat, then they’ll act immediately. Otherwise we’ll tread more gently, perhaps through the older child’s school.”

“Okay,” said Veronica.

“And meanwhile we’ll look into the tenancy issue.”

“Okay,” she agreed again.

“We weren’t actually sure whether to say anything at all,” said George.

The officer nodded understandingly. “It’s always better to say something.”

She should have felt invigorated, assured, but Veronica padlocked her bike quickly and checked the latch twice as she closed the door to their house. Despite leaving the council building at gone five, George had had to return to the office, so here she was again, arriving home alone. Throughout the afternoon, the temperature had risen even higher and the windows of the kitchen begged to be opened. If she unbolted one at the back of the house as well, she might just harness a cross-breeze to temper the stickiness of her skin. But Veronica left the windows shut. Instead, she half-filled a glass with ice, plunging water on top of it, and only after a deep, fortifying sip did she consider the window again. In all of their design meetings with the architect, they had talked in length about maximising light, and letting the space flow outwards, but never once had they mentioned the opposite current – the way that the street could spill in.