She and Drew had made love, and this was definitely making love. It had been very tender, very intimate, very slow, and very quiet, apart from towards the very end when she couldn’t help herself. Drew had threatened to put a pillow over her face lest she wake the boys, which had made her giggly and thus only added to the intensity of the orgasm and her vocal appreciation of it.

She felt a long way from sleep now. Not worried or anxious, but the way she felt when there was something unresolved between them, a matter that they hadn’t had the time or the inclination to discuss. There was nothing wrong between them, though, nothing she was turning over in her head.

That was just it, however. It was something that wasn’t between them. It was something she kept hidden, in the heart of that place Drew knew she went, angry on the road there and unreachable when she arrived.

They had talked plenty today, making the long walks between different areas of the park, while the boys ran ahead, zigzagging back and forth across the paths. She had apologised for becoming obsessive, and Drew had acknowledged that it wasn’t something that happened all the time, just that it had come on the back of a difficult couple of months.

He said he understood that it would always be part of the deal that she would be withdrawn at times, as there were certain things he was grateful that she didn’t bring home from work with her. However, he argued, there were times when she was clearly carrying a burden she shouldn’t try to shoulder alone.

She had talked a little about Fallan, enough to offer him something by way of explanation, but same as with Laura, she hadn’t talked to either of them about the real reason he disturbed her, the real source of this wellspring of hatred.

Lying awake once again in the dark, she kept thinking of what Laura had said, about how people didn’t need to be defined by the worst things that happened to them, and about how perhaps they could change.

She started replaying today’s conversations in her head, trying to capture the thing that would not let her rest, the bird that was loose in her attic.

‘So this guy Fallan helped you?’ Drew had said.

‘He wasn’t helping me. He was helping himself, and helping Jasmine Sharp, though I’m not quite sure why. I was just an auxiliary beneficiary.’

‘But either way, he was on your side. Doesn’t that open the door just a wee bit to forgiving him?’

Drew suggested this warily, afraid he’d get his head bitten off even though they were standing among dozens of people, watching the boys on a merry-go-round.