“Ryan, do you think you are invisible?

Silence.

“Mrs Reddington,” begged Amelia, still bouncing.

“Ryan, I am asking you a question. Do you think I didn’t see you kick Ishaan?”

“It was an accident,” he whined. “My foot just moved by mistake.”

Veronica stared at him hard. The itching in her own legs had become unbearable in the dry grass and she wished she could kick out as he had. Her stomach continued to throb. A pool of sweat gathered on her upper lip. Ryan held her stare.

“Mrs Reddington, Mrs Reddington, I have another favourite,” enthused Amelia. “It was Mummy’s favourite too and—”

And that was the moment that, despite her intentions to the contrary, despite her desire not to pilfer, despite the years in which she had grown and evolved and become, Veronica Reddington rounded on Amelia Beckham, calling her a ‘relentless irritation’, and docked three of the golden oval stickers that she, and her ‘mummy’, so treasured.

At the museum, the air conditioning pumped freshness onto grateful visitors. It was two o’clock, a couple of school groups beginning their retreat onto coaches, heat-weary mothers just surfacing with sweaty, post-nap toddlers, a few lone men, nodding earnestly at military displays. Standing beneath an air vent, Veronica regarded David Beckham’s surrounds. Under the guise of ‘not feeling herself’, she had asked the headmistress to cover her class, and she had come straight here. It wasn’t a lie, she wasn’t herself; the deceit was only that she hadn’t been herself for a long while.

Now that she stood in the great lobby, aeroplanes lining the space with a feeling of flight grounded, she didn’t know why she had come. She had exited the school gates, and taken a taxi, and here she had arrived, as if there was no agency in it, seemingly remembering only as she walked through the doors that on Fridays, David worked until three. Where would he be? Veronica consulted the lady at the information desk and headed as instructed to the Battle of Britain Hall where David was readying a display. She called to him from the doorway and he hurried over at once, understandably anxious as to why Amelia’s teacher was appearing at his place of work in the midst of a school day. Why was she appearing?

“Is Amelia okay?” he rushed, before hello.

“Yes, she’s fine,” calmed Veronica, shaking her head slightly as though he was the crazed one, rather than she. “The headmistress has my class this afternoon.”

“Oh. Okay. Thank goodness, I was worried for a moment.”

“Nothing to worry about.”

Now that he had been assured, David’s expression altered. Still holding a stack of papers from the display, he looked down at them, and then carefully up at Veronica. “Are you, were you just visiting the museum?”

“Not exactly. I did want to see you.”

“Oh?”

Veronica smiled. She reached out and put her hand over his, still clasping papers. “Don’t worry, Amelia’s fine. It was a fun evening the other night, wasn’t it?” She paused, but David said nothing. “Delicious to see Sarah again. And getting to know you a little was, unexpected. We should do it another time soon.”