Jamie’s only experiences with the Morningside South Police Station had been two occasions when she’d had to report motor vehicle accidents. The memory of those two fender benders did not encourage her to hope that this would be a quick exercise.

But either the station had improved its efficiency, or having Tom along was speeding things up. She suspected a bit of both. One big improvement was that you were now allowed to write your own incident report. The last time, she’d had to tell her story to an officer of the law, who wrote it down at the snail speed for which bureaucrats everywhere are known. Now she was handed a four-page form with plenty of space to write out her own statement.

Writing the story down made Jamie wonder why she had waited so long to report the incidents, while still fearing she was wasting police time. Then she thought about the old dog she used to see sniffing around in the street, and knew he hadn’t deserved such a cruel end.

Tom sat with Ben while Jamie spoke to one of the officers. When she was finished with the paperwork, he stood up and announced that he was going to see the station commander.

“Come, Ben,” he said, bending down to pick him up.

“Wait!” Jamie said. “Why don’t you leave him here with me? It won’t be much fun for him in there, and you’ll get on faster without him. I won’t take my eye off him for a second, I promise.”

Tom hesitated. Then Ben started wriggling in his arms, trying to squirm his way back down to ground level. Tom closed his eyes as he considered his son’s unendearing habit of pulling papers and files off desks when he was feeling ignored. Ben started to whine, a niggly, persistent sound that quickly climbed in volume.

“Thanks,” he said, putting Ben back down. The whining stopped at once. “Please watch him carefully. He can move like lightning when he feels like it. I’ll be about fifteen minutes.”

Ben watched his father walk away without a murmur. When Tom turned out of sight, he swung around and enveloped Jamie’s legs in a hug. “Lady!” he said happily. “Mima.”

Looking down into his chocolate-drop eyes, Jamie felt the first gleam of light break through in this whole horrible day. She scooped him onto her lap and hugged him hard. At last she could do what she’d been longing to do. With Tom’s wary eye removed, she could cuddle Ben all she liked.

The little boy erupted into giggles as her squeezing turned into tickling, while she pretended to make snarling, chomping noises at the back of his neck. As his giggles subsided, she pulled him against her chest and breathed in deeply to inhale the baby-shampoo smell of his head. A gush of love welled up inside her.

Before she could get too comfortable, he slid off her lap and onto the floor. Jamie watched as he walked up and down the row of unoccupied chairs next to her, tapping each one with his hand. If he got rowdy, she’d control him, she told herself. She couldn’t bear parents who let their children run wild in a public place. She would never let a child under her care behave like that.

A beeping noise in her handbag told Jamie she had an incoming text. She looked around for her bag, momentarily confused about where she’d left it. Oh, there it was, behind her chair. She reached into her bag and pulled out her phone. When she looked up again, Ben was gone.

For a second, she stared at the empty waiting area in disbelief.

Then her heart started banging, and she leapt to her feet.

Where was he? She’d taken her eyes off him for two seconds, no more. Where the hell was he?

An icy fist clutched at her as she imagined him being snatched. Or running out into the busy road outside and being hit by a car. No, the door leading out of the station was too big and heavy for Ben to pull open on his own. Wherever he was, he hadn’t gone outside.

“Where did he go?” she demanded of the bored clerk sitting behind a desk. “The little boy who was sitting here with me just a second ago. Did you see where he went?” The clerk just shrugged and shook his head.

Swallowing her panic, Jamie dashed across the room and looked down the corridor where Tom had gone.

“Ben!” she hissed. “Ben! Where are you?”

Her knees went weak with relief as a dark little head peered at her around one of the doorways.

“There you are!” She darted forward to pick him up. “You mustn’t run off like that, Bennie. You nearly gave me a heart attack. Were you looking for your dad?”

“Dada!” Ben said, injecting maximum longing into his voice. “Want Dada!” You’d swear the kid had been separated from his father for five years instead of five minutes.

Nerves jangling, Jamie carried him back to the waiting area, wondering if she would survive until Tom came back. Fifteen minutes, he’d said. And that was five minutes ago. Only ten minutes to go. He’d better not be one second late.

A quarter of an hour later, Jamie felt as though she’d aged several years. In the time they’d been waiting, Ben had managed to hit his head jumping from the chairs onto the floor. His wails on that occasion had plaster practically falling from the ceiling. Then he’d discovered the water cooler, which entertained him for approximately thirty seconds before he’d tugged the hot water switch and burned his hand. More wails, more plaster falling from the ceiling.