‘I’ll be there as soon as I can,’ Charles said, and she knew she’d shaken him as well. She knew he’d come fast.

She didn’t want Charles. She wanted her dad to come, but of course they acted as a team.

They all cared for her. They cared for her so well she felt…stifled.

The doorbell pealed while she was getting dressed and her feeling of oppression deepened. But then she thought, surely Charles couldn’t be here already.

Maybe it was another patient. Maybe it was another need for Dom to face this Easter.

If he was called out…Maybe she could stay with the boys for a while, she thought. As a thank-you gesture. Charles wouldn’t mind waiting. He could have one of her hot cross scones.

She hauled her windcheater over her head and opened the living-room door with caution. Dom was at the front door, facing a stranger.

The man in the doorway was long, lanky and unkempt. He was maybe six feet four or so. He had limp, dirty hair that hung in dreadlocks to his shoulders. He was wearing tattered clothes and frayed sandals, and in his hands he was holding the biggest Easter egg Erin had ever seen. As big as two footballs, the thing was wider than he was.

‘I’m here to see Nathan,’ the man snapped, and then started coughing. Dom took the egg and waited until the coughing ceased.

‘Nathan,’ he called down the passage.

Marilyn was right behind him in the hall, between Erin and the front door, between Dom and Erin. As he glanced backward past the dog, Dom’s eyes met Erin’s. He gave her a blank stare-the sort of look doctors gave each other in the emergency department to say caution, act with care.

Nathan came running out of the kitchen. He saw who was at the front door-and stopped.

‘Here’s your dad,’ Dom said, gently, Erin noticed. ‘I think he’s brought you a present.