Mr Nicholls’s hand landed on her shoulder. ‘Uh, Jess? I think maybe you should stop now.’

The two policemen gazed at her steadily. On the verge, Norman flopped down with a great sigh. Tanzie watched it all in silence, her eyes great hollows. Oh, God, Jess thought. All she sees around her now is chaos. She bit back her words, mumbled an apology.

‘You will be charged with driving without the appropriate documents, Mrs Thomas,’ Policeman Number One said, handing her a slip of paper. ‘I have to warn you that you will receive a court summons, and that you face a possible fine of up to five thousand pounds.’

‘Five grand?’ Jess started to laugh.

‘But you can go now.’

‘Five grand?’

‘And you’ll need to pay to get this …’ the officer couldn’t bring himself to say ‘car’ ‘… out of the police pound. I have to tell you there is a fifteen-pound charge for every day that it remains there.’

‘Perfect. And how am I supposed to get it out of the pound if I’m not allowed to drive it?’

She was testing his patience, she could see. But she couldn’t stop herself. Five grand.

‘You tax it and insure it like everybody else and then you can take it away. Or you pay a garage to fetch it. I’d advise you to remove all your belongings before the tow truck arrives. Once it leaves here we cannot be held responsible for the vehicle’s contents.’

‘Of course. Because obviously it would be way too much to hope for a car to be safe in a police pound,’ she muttered.

‘Jess –’

‘But, Mum, how are we going to get home?’

There was a brief silence. The policemen turned away.

‘I’ll give you a lift,’ Mr Nicholls said.

Jess stepped away from him. ‘Oh. No. No, thank you. We’re fine. We’ll walk. It’s not far.’

‘It’s three miles.’

Tanzie squinted at her, as if trying to assess whether she was serious, then clambered wearily to her feet. Jess remembered that under her coat Tanzie was in her pyjamas. Mr Nicholls glanced at the children. ‘I’m headed back that way.’ He nodded towards the town. ‘You know where I live.’

Tanzie and Nicky didn’t speak, but Jess watched Nicky limp towards the car and start to haul out the bags. She couldn’t make him carry all that stuff home. She wasn’t sure he could even walk that far in his present state.

‘Thank you,’ she said stiffly. ‘That’s very kind of you.’ She couldn’t look him in the eye.

‘What happened to your boy?’ Policeman Number Two said, as Nicky dropped his holdall at her feet.

‘Look it up on your database,’ she snapped, and walked over to the pile of bags.

They drove away from the police in silence. Jess sat in the passenger seat of Mr Nicholls’s immaculate car, staring straight ahead at the road. She wasn’t sure she had ever felt more uncomfortable. She could feel, even if she couldn’t see, the children’s stunned silence at the evening’s turn of events. She had let them down. She watched the hedgerows turn to fencing and brick walls, the black lanes turn to streetlights. She couldn’t believe they had only been gone an hour and a half. It felt like a lifetime. A five-thousand-pound fine. An almost-certain driving ban. And a court appearance. Marty would go mental. And she had just blown Tanzie’s last chance of going to St Anne’s.

For the first time that evening Jess felt a lump rise in her throat.

‘You okay?’

‘Fine.’ She kept her face turned away from Mr Nicholls. He didn’t know. Of course he didn’t know. For a brief, terrifying moment after she had agreed to get into his car, she had wondered if this was a trick. He would wait until the police had gone, then do something dreadful to pay her back for her theft.

But it was worse. He was just trying to be helpful.

‘Um, can you turn left here? We’re down there. Go to the end, turn left, then the second turning on the right.’

The picturesque part of town had fallen away half a mile back. Here on Danehall, the trees were skeletal even in summer and burnt-out cars stood on piles of bricks, like civic sculptures on little pedestals. The houses came in three vintages, depending on your street: terraced, pebble-dashed, or tiny and built in maroon brick with uPVC windows. He swung the car round to the left and into Seacole Avenue, slowing as she pointed to her house. She looked round at the back seat and saw that during the short drive Tanzie had nodded off, her mouth hanging slightly open, her head resting against Norman, who leant half his bulk against Nicky’s body. Nicky looked out of the window impassively. They were turning them out of the Hare and Terrier, and groups of men stood smoking on the corner, some preparing to go home, others looking for an excuse not to.

‘You might not want to hang around too long,’ she said, nodding towards them. ‘Your car is the same model as the local skunk dealer’s.’

‘So where were you trying to get to?’

‘Scotland.’ She rubbed her nose. ‘It’s a long story.’

He waited.

Her leg had started to jiggle involuntarily. ‘I need to get my daughter to a Maths Olympiad. The fares were expensive. Although not as expensive as getting pulled over by the Old Bill, it turns out.’

‘A Maths Olympiad.’

‘I know. I’d never heard of one either until a week ago. Like I said, it’s a long story.’