“I know.”

“I didn’t recognise it. I stood there and heard a name I’d never heard and thought, I don’t know this woman.”

“I know,” she said. “I did it on purpose. I thought about it in the car for four hours.” She turned to look at me. “I wanted to know if you’d take her anyway.

From a total stranger with the wrong name.”

Chapter 16 — Two Things

She told me about the police car in October, a year almost to the day.

I hadn’t raised it. Twelve months, and I never once asked her why she’d pointed at my chest and said that’s the woman and let me walk out to a patrol car in the rain believing I was being arrested for taking her daughter.