Tilly frightened the girl. The madness of Lear. Poor Ophelia drifting downstream with a handbag of knives and forks – and – just this morning – a spool of red ribbon and a knitting needle, as if she had wandered through a haberdashery department in her sleep. She had played Ophelia in rep. The actor playing Hamlet had been on the short side. The audience had been restless. Tilly had understood, one expected Hamlet to have a little height. Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream. ‘Have you ever done the classics?’ she asked Saskia the other day. ‘Shakespeare and so on?’

‘Oh God, no,’ Saskia said, as if Tilly had suggested something distasteful.

Saskia was nothing like Padma, Padma was kind, always asking if she could do anything for Tilly. Sometimes Tilly felt like an invalid the way the girl treated her. Invalid. Invalid. Depended where you put the emphasis, didn’t it? Sick or without validity. She was becoming both. Better to be dead than mad. Ophelia knew.

The little ‘Twinkle, Twinkle’ girl was mixed up now with all the other poor mites in the world. Some stuffed baby rabbits in there too. Her own lost baby. All conflated into one small, helpless infant howling in the wind. The name of the ‘Twinkle, Twinkle’ girl had slipped away, she’d had it a minute ago and now . . . gone, the way of all kettles. Oh, lord.

She had wanted to tell the man who said he used to be a policeman about the ‘Twinkle,Twinkle’ girl. Had she said something to the nice girl in the whatever centre? Muckle, mickle, metric, Merrion Centre. She had been so taken up with her own troubles that she had probably said nothing. Evil will prevail when good women do nothing. She still hadn’t found her purse, of course. Julia and Padma had loaned her some money. And even Saskia had given her a fivepound note and said, ‘This’ll tide you over.’ She was sure the girl had a good heart really even though Tilly had heard her complaining to someone on the production team. That old toad. Filthy habits. I need to live on my own. You’ll be lucky, ducky, they’re a tight-fisted bunch.

She should have stepped in. She imagined herself snatching the child in her arms and running out of the Merrion Centre with her. She could have put her in the car (if she could have remembered how to start it) and driven off to Bluebell Cottage where she would have fed the poor little mite on coddled eggs and some of those nice Beurre d’Anjou pears that Padma had bought for her. Didn’t know how to coddle an egg, of course. Mother used to make them for her in a little china egg-coddler. Pretty thing. Coddle was a lovely word, like cuddle. If Tilly had a little girl to look after she would coddle her. Or a rabbit, a poor little velvety rabbit running from the fox or the gun. Run, rabbit, run.

Her thoughts were rudely interrupted by an urgent knocking at the door.

She couldn’t imagine who it could be at this hour. She opened the door cautiously. A young woman who looked familiar was standing there. She was out of breath, her insubstantial bosom heaving. She was wearing an awful lot of make-up. Beneath the make-up Tilly eventually recognized Saskia. She pushed her way rudely into the house, asking, ‘Is Vince here?’ as if her life depended on it.

‘Vince?’ Tilly said. ‘There’s no one here called Vince, dear.’

Tilly supposed that Bluebell Cottage, being a holiday let, had been occupied by lots of different people. Although why Saskia should be looking for any of them she didn’t know. She suddenly noticed the gun in Saskia’s hand. ‘Oh, my dear,’ Tilly said, ‘what on earth are you going to do with that?’

‘Cut!’ someone bellowed.

Cut? Cut what? Tilly wondered.

Tracy decided to stop off at a supermarket to pick up supplies. First she loaded up the trolley with bananas, convenience food for small children. As they trawled the aisles, Tracy’s mind had been divided between worrying about the security cameras and wondering if Courtney was going to get stuck in the shopping-trolley seat – and what she would do about it if she did – when she saw a familiar face coming towards them.

Barry Crawford’s wife. Barbara. Shit. She would want to know who Courtney was. Of all the supermarkets in all the world . . .

Barbara Crawford was advancing along the canned-vegetable aisle as if she was walking on pins, treating her shopping trolley like a Silver Cross pram. A zombie in full slap and heels. It didn’t matter what was happening on the inside, Barbara was always rigged out ready for an impromptu invitation to lunch with the Queen. Immaculate nails and make-up. Wool dress, gilt chain-belt, finedenier stockings, her black hair as patent as her shoes. Tracy reckoned if she was grief-stricken she would dress herself in rags, smear coal and mud on her face, let her hair turn into dreadlocks. Each to their own, she supposed. After she married Barry, Barbara spent years as an Avon lady. Ding-dong. Have you thought about blusher,Tracy? It could do wonders for you. It would take more than blusher.

Barbara was wearing a rigid smile on her face that looked as if she’d put it on this morning and would be damned if she would take it off for anyone. She was the kind of wife you were glad to leave at home. The strict rules-and-duties kind, a creature of routine, married to someone whose job was anything but routine. Drove her crazy. Drove Barry to the pubs and the prostitutes. ‘What any man who loved his wife would do,’ he said. ‘Wives for the missionary position, showed you respected them, and whores for the funny stuff.’ All whores wanted was money, Barry ‘explained’ to Tracy. Wives made you pay with your lifeblood. Made Tracy glad she was no one’s wife. Most days she was grateful for her single state, relieved not to be growing old in the company of someone who looked at her indifferently over the toast and marmalade while she wondered what he was really thinking.

Those days were over for Barry now though. Lots of things ended the day little Sam died.

‘Oh shit,’ Tracy muttered as Barbara drew nearer. It was the anniversary any day now, wasn’t it? Two years. ‘Shit, shit, shit.’

Courtney looked at her anxiously, her face suddenly pinched. ‘S’all right, sweetheart,’ Tracy said, ‘I just remembered something, that’s all – Barbara! Hello.’Tracy modified her voice to a more sensitive and compassionate one, suited to the bereaved. ‘How are you?’ Tracy had been with Barry when he took the call, his hand had started to shake so much that he’d dropped the phone. Tracy had picked it up, said, ‘Hello,’ into the receiver, got someone else’s bad news at first hand.

Barry Crawford was born a miserable old git but they rubbed along. Tracy remembered when Amy was born, remembered wetting the baby’s head in a pub full of coppers. Barry a DC by then, Tracy still in uniform. (Of course.) Not long after the Ripper was caught.

‘Women are safe again,’ an inspector said to her over the congratulatory beers and Tracy was so drunk that she had laughed in his face. As if taking one mad, bad bloke off the streets made women safe.

‘To my new daughter,’ Barry said, raising his glass of double malt high to the room in general. Must have been about his sixth that night. ‘Better luck next time,’ some joker at the back of the room said.

When Amy’s own baby, Sam, was born, Amy’s husband, Ivan, was in the delivery room with her, sweating out every minute of the labour. ‘Times have changed,’ Barry said sardonically to Tracy. ‘Now you have to be supportive. Men have to be like women these days, God help us.’

‘Some of us are becoming the men we wanted to marry,’ Tracy said.

‘Eh?’

‘Gloria Steinem. Early feminist.’

‘Heck, Tracy.’

‘Quote of the day on my quote-a-day calendar. Just saying.’

Barry sighed and raised his glass. ‘To my grandson. Sam.’ They were in a pub in Bingley. Birthplace of the Ripper. They should put up a plaque. Ancient history now. There were just the two of them toasting the baby this time, dinosaurs left over from prehistoric times. ‘If you don’t evolve you get left behind,’ Barry said.