I shook my head, and looked up at Connor. He was looking down the street at the lights and the cars on the main road. The back of my shoulder was stinging from the scrape and there was a tingle down my back where it felt wet. Our mum should have come back from the shops by now, we didn’t know where our dad was and none of the lodgers were in. Manus should have had his key but he kept losing it. We weren’t supposed to be out so late. He said it was in the pocket of his other trousers, and Busola said he had holes in them.

‘Where you gonna go?’ I said.

‘You can’t come,’ Connor said, not even looking at me. I followed where he was looking down to the main road. Our dad was coming up the street on the other side from the corner, and he could see us.

‘What’s going on?’

‘We’re waiting for Mummy to come home,’ Manus said.

‘You don’t have your key?’

Manus shrugged with his hands in his pockets and looked down. My dad shook his head and opened the door. The house was dark, and the light in the hall wasn’t working. The radio was on in Mr Ajani’s room at the back on the ground floor and the stairs shook as we stumbled up in the dark.

My dad turned on the light in the front room and lit the paraffin stove, telling us to keep on our coats till it warmed up. He sent Connor to the kitchen to make tea and told Manus to go to the bedroom to look for the key and bring it. ‘What are all of you doing outside?’ he said to me and Busola.

Busola looked at me. ‘Waiting for Mummy,’ I said. He looked at me and then at her. ‘Down by the railway,’ she said.

‘All of you?’ She nodded. He looked at me. ‘So you are feeling better?’ I nodded. ‘And you want to drag people back to the scene of the crime?’

I was in trouble. Maybe I talked in my sleep. Maybe Busola already told him. Maybe he always knew. He stopped me working it out by telling me to take money off the sideboard and go to the shop to buy my own Lucozade because I was well enough.

I passed the bedroom door, it was open and through the crack I saw Manus standing on his own looking out the window. Connor was in the kitchen as I went down the stairs, trying to get the gas to light with the safety stick. There was the smell of gas as he went on clicking and didn’t notice me.