Terry opens the door.

There is no time. No time to think or plan. Simone pushes herself around the corner. She forces her feet to move, and they do, they obey, they obey her and nobody else – faster and faster, towards the abyss.

It comes. It happens.

From outside, she hears the sound of Terry exploding, something smashing. In a moment he will be down the stairs again, on the street, looking for her, but still she steels herself towards him. She has to get to Dominic. She has to get to her son. There is no choice, no freedom after all. She moves closer. Closer again, closer to those hands that will grip around her throat. Closer. Closer. Almost there. Until suddenly, just metres away from the door, a face appears in front of her, and a strong, decisive hand pulls her sharply away.

“Don’t look back,” says Lewa.

Veronica

Veronica had only popped home during lunch for some fresh clothes, but there was post waiting for her. A letter from Dr Shirazi detailing in writing the results of her fertility tests that he had already explained to her in person: quite simply, she was fine. There was nothing abnormal, no depletion of eggs, no irregular hormones, no endometriosis or blocking of the fallopian tubes, no anti-sperm antibodies; there was no reason, on her side, that they should not conceive, as he had suspected. He would, however, monitor her next few cycles so that they could pinpoint the optimal time for conception – which according to Monday’s appointment would be tomorrow. And they would wait for the results from George.

A week ago, Veronica would have leapt to the conclusion that since it wasn’t her, it had to be George, his fertility had to be the problem, because they had a problem, and then she would have spent days wondering if and when and how to tell him. Now, instead, Veronica ran lightly up the stairs, confident that Dr Shirazi had been right all along. The obstacles were psychosomatic, there was no issue at all.

Despite the morning’s rain, Veronica had cycled to school, enjoying the dodging of puddles and the pattering of heavy drops on her face. She hadn’t thought it mattered how wet she became since she kept a spare set of clothes in the classroom, and as she weaved through the bouquet of umbrellas, cycling upright with no hands, she had an urge to laugh at the weather, to congratulate it for its unpredictable wildness, to let it know she understood that spirit, she felt it too. But she had forgotten underwear.

Next door, there was a sudden thumping down the stairs like a bag being pulled, then the slamming of a door, and Veronica moved quickly from her chest of drawers to the bedroom window to look. She hadn’t seen Dominic since returning from France, he hadn’t knocked all week, and the noise in the meantime had been relatively mild, so the darkness that usually emanated through brick had receded slightly in her mind. Still, she found herself thinking frequently of those children, and listening for signs of life.