Cassie and I were walking to the courthouse at a swift pace, a sudden anxiety strung between us. ‘What’s going to happen?’ She was breathless.

‘He’ll come home with us. They won’t keep him in, not for this.’ I’d been assured this was likely. So why did a gnawing in my stomach tell me it wouldn’t be that easy?

‘But what will happen then? Like, how do you talk to him? What do I say?’

‘I don’t know, darling. Just as normal. I—’

I felt Cassie strain beside me. ‘Jake! Jake!’

Too late, I saw him too. He was skulking near the shrubs that surrounded the courthouse, stooping down. This young man I’d seen born, close as a cousin to my kids, and he was staring at us with naked hate. He was still wearing his black hoody and jeans. And my Cassie, my golden girl, was running towards him. ‘Jake! Please!’

He was turning away from her. ‘We shouldn’t talk.’

‘But we can still . . .’

‘No. We can’t.’ He actually pushed her, his rough hand on her slender arm, and in that moment I wanted to hurt him. My godson, practically a nephew, and yet a spurt of rage boiled up in me.

Cassie stood watching him go, rubbing her arm in a kind of wonder, as he scuttled through the glass court door.

‘Are you OK, darling? Did he hurt you?’

‘He didn’t want to talk to me.’

‘He’s just upset. This is very upsetting for everyone.’

‘But me and him . . . I don’t understand, Mum! I don’t understand what’s going on!’

I put my arm around her, and for once she let me. ‘It’s going to be OK. This will all get sorted out very soon.’

I wished I believed it.

The court dazzled me. There was a glass panel in the roof and fractals of light fell on us as we took our seats. Karen and Jake were across from us. He held her hand tight in his, and both of them looked straight over our heads. I could feel Cassie quiver beside me, and I took her hand too. She held it for a moment, then dropped it. Anna McCrum was on the lawyers’ bench. There too was DC Adam Devine, looking about twelve in his suit. Movement in the dock. It was Mike. It was my husband, but in that moment he looked like a stranger, pale-faced and old. He caught my eye, pleading, and I couldn’t bear it. He looked terrified. Cassie stifled a sob.

‘All rise!’

Everyone got to their feet, and so did I, stumbling.

It was time.