There was more honking as she raced into the road and grabbed Joey. He tried to throw her off, but she held on and guided him firmly back to the pavement.

‘What were you thinking of?’ she demanded breathlessly. ‘You could have been run over.’

‘Yaaa-yaaa-yaaaah!’ he shrieked, glaring at her and wrenching himself free. But behind the childish fierceness Gina glimpsed bewilderment, as though her words were meaningless, and now she was certain about something that had only been a suspicion before. She knelt so that he could see her lips.

‘You’re deaf, aren’t you?’ she said slowly.

‘Aaaah!’ he yelled.

His face was filled with sullen misery. She knew a flare of anger at the man who’d deprived this vulnerable child of his mother.

‘Don’t go into the road,’ she told him, speaking slowly and clearly. ‘It’s dangerous.’ She tried to put her hand on his shoulder.

‘Aaaa!’ he screamed, thrashing about so wildly that she was almost knocked off balance.

‘Joey!’ said a voice behind him. ‘Stop that!’

Gina looked up to see Carson, frowning. She rose to face him.

‘It’s no use shouting at him,’ she said. ‘He can’t hear you.’

‘Yes,’ he said heavily. ‘I know he can’t.’

He reached for the child’s arm. Instantly Joey swung around to face him and let out another yell. He sounded shocking, like a small demented animal, but Gina, standing close to him, could feel that he was trembling violently.

She could have wept for the child. She knew that bewildered frustration that could only find release in rage. Carson’s appalled expression now brought back a host of painful memories, and instinctively she put her arms about Joey.

‘I’m his father. I’ll take him.’

Gina gasped, trying to fight down the wild anger that surged up in her. She almost never lost her temper, but now it rushed away from her, leaving her shaking.