The main entrance to the hospital was brightly lit and the darkened windows above blinked machine lights, like reflected stars. Carla parked by the maternity wing, its entrance dark, as if babies were never born at night. As she walked past, the chill of the night a welcome reprieve from the weeks of heat, she thought of Baz and of the answer she was going to give him.

Carla continued left to the front entrance, where smokers gathered around the base of a tree, underneath a sign saying No Smoking. Ten feet away stood Ian Fowler with a man she didn’t know. He caught her eye and hate seemed to reach out and touch her.

She kept her head down but the man next to Ian called over to her. ‘Carla Brown. Got a quote for the Oxford Mail about how Thames Valley Police persecuted a young woman to her death?’ He stubbed his cigarette out and walked towards her, iPhone held forward as if to record her.

‘No comment,’ she said, pushing at the revolving doors.

‘Really? No comment when a woman who was wrongly convicted of killing her own baby was killed by the very woman who had testified against her?’

Carla glanced at Joanne’s husband; even in the shadows his face was grave and broken. The journalist’s anger seemed to radiate for the both of them.

She wanted to say she was sorry. She wanted to walk up to Ian and tell him that to his face.

‘No comment,’ she repeated, entering the small glass cubicle and willing it to revolve.

Bremer had been watching through the floor-to-ceiling glass window. ‘Well done.’

Carla didn’t feel like thanking him.

‘Remember, never say sorry, not until the case is closed and people are in jail.’

‘The coward’s way out?’ she said, instantly regretting it. Bremer let it slide.

‘How is she?’ she asked after a moment.

‘Argumentative. Wants to get out already. Hates being fussed over. So, very well!’

Carla laughed. ‘I’ll get her some grapes to really wind her up.’ She looked over at the M&S shop. Gerry was somewhere above them. Lying in some bed down a myriad of corridors, past countless swinging doors.

‘He’s on floor five,’ Bremer said.

She gave him a small smile. ‘Not sure I’ll go and see him.’ After all, what would she say?

‘You should. It will do you good. He’s going down for a long time – it may be your last chance.’

She nodded. He was right. She’d lost the nearest thing to a father figure she’d ever known, so the least she could do was say goodbye.