“Sorry,” she turned. “Sorry, go back to sleep.”

“What’s the matter?” He sat up, shielding his eyes with his palm.

“Just a case I lost,” Sarah shrugged. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have woken you.”

David closed his eyes. “Do you want to talk about it?”

But she shook her head, allowing him to drift back off as she stumbled into the bathroom where she brushed her teeth and wondered how she would justify the loss to her client. As she looked in the mirror, watching her brush move back and forth, she was unable to think of an explanation. Not one she could believe in. And as the morning continued, so did that feeling of disbelief, of spinning, of helplessness.

The people on the street seemed to sleepwalk through the sunlight, as though they had no idea that Right principles had that morning been ripped from beneath them. Most of them, she supposed, would never notice. They might never know that darkness and wrong could be validated, rewarded even, without consequence, and that anything, anything could happen after all.

Simone

Simone’s left arm has lost feeling. She’s lying on top of it, hidden behind a pair of bins on the other side of the road from the flat, a little way down. Her clothes are soaked through and her toes are crunched from cold. Heaving herself slowly to sitting, she tries to wriggle them, feeling the heavy deadness of her arm pull her sideways. Despite the many transgressions of her years, she does not think she has slept outside before, but she could not leave Terry unwatched. She could not let Dominic near him.

She hadn’t meant to fall asleep. For hours she had scrutinised the door, scoured the street, searched for signs of man or boy. But at some point she must have drifted. The last time she looked at her phone it was already gone 3am and now it is only six, so she can only hope – pray – that in the intervening hours, Dominic has not been back.

There is movement on the other side of the road and Simone sees Veronica’s husband leaving the house, soft leather briefcase slung across his shoulder, a skip in his step. The feeling is beginning to return to her arm and she arranges herself more carefully behind the bins. For another hour, two, she stares at the building across the street. Simone’s eyes are heavy and begin to close. Her stomach hurts with hunger. She is thirsty, and dirty, and she should check in on Jasmine. She wonders about returning to the refuge. But she cannot bring herself to leave. Until finally, the door of the neighbour’s house opens again, and this time Veronica emerges from it, merrily perching herself atop of her bike, cycling into the sunshine.

So Dominic is not with Veronica either, thinks Simone. And surely, surely, if Veronica had heard anything happening in the flat, by now there would be police at the door.

Jasmine is awake and bright-eyed when Simone appears at the refuge. She has two plaits in her hair, and she is happily dancing away to a pop song blaring through Lewa’s phone. Lewa has done her best to make the room homey. Jasmine’s princesses are lined up next to the bed. Simone sits heavily on the chair at the end of it.