Veronica had chosen to cycle to her new job. Boarding in Kent, she had biked into the nearby village upright, without holding onto the handlebars, and pretended to her friends that this skill came naturally, but really it was from two formative years during primary school spent in Holland. Today’s cycle was an easy two miles away in St John’s Wood. She knew the route already, though not as well as her mother supposed. Veronica still wrote, and received, a weekly letter from her mother. In the last one, her mother had mused that now Veronica was living back in North London, she would of course remember the old house in Hampstead Garden Suburb, and the walks on the Heath, and did she know that the school she was teaching at was just a road away from the music academy they’d driven to every Saturday for violin lessons? Veronica didn’t remember any of this. They’d lived in the Hampstead house for little over a year. But she’d been to the school three times now – two interviews, and one lengthy induction day at which she’d been thoroughly introduced to the campus. It was not hyperbole to call it a campus. Despite being a stone’s throw from Central London, the school boasted its own playing field, a swimming pool, and grand old buildings that reminded Veronica of the similarly grand institutions of her own childhood, filling her with the immediate sense of greeting a long lost relative. Familiarity, however, did not provide her with the easy confidence she might have presumed.

As she pushed away the unsteadiness in her stomach and unlocked her bike, Veronica considered this. There was a time when she would have swept into a new position, charming the men, captivating the women. She should, now, have been sweeping through the pretty Primrose streets. But at the first traffic light she stopped too abruptly and almost came off over the handlebars, and she physically felt her legs wobbling. As she arrived, she saw already a small group of elbows-out parents huddled together many minutes before the ringing of the bell. One of them spotted her, and pointed.

Her nerves were, however, unnecessary, as far as the children went at least, turning out to be a delightful balance between respectful and precocious.

“Mrs Reddington?” one girl interrupted at least three times during the first lesson. “Mrs Reddington, my mummy says I should ask you lots of questions so you remember me. Can I ask you a question please?”

“Mrs Reddington, you’re so pretty,” blushed another, a dark-haired, caramel-skinned boy already possessing a cheeky charm.

“Mrs Greenington,” dared a third, easily coerced into apology by the slightest lift of Veronica’s left eyebrow.

There was only one child who unsettled her. Sheathed in a halo of wilful, auburn curls, and freckled in glorious splashes across her cheeks, Amelia Beckham stood well under four foot, quiet unless spoken to, at which point a smile would spread infectiously into her speech so that even the most exacting of her peers would listen. From the first minute, Veronica could not take her eyes off her. The girl was seated near the front of the class and paid keen attention, raising her hand every time a question was asked, or wrinkling her brow earnestly if she didn’t have an answer. She was lovely, exactly the kind of child Veronica could imagine having herself. But she didn’t know why she felt such a magnetic pull towards her.