A running scream that can’t stop until I hold them both.

Darting across the road, I heard sirens blaring on the bridge. But the fire engines weren’t moving. There were abandoned cars by the traffic lights blocking their path, and women were getting out of other cars just left in the middle of the road and were running across the bridge towards the school. But all the mothers were at the sports day. What were these women doing, kicking off their high-wedged shoes and tripping over flip-flops and screaming as they ran, like me? I recognised one, the mother of a reception child. They were the mothers of the four-year-olds coming to do their usual pick-up. One had left a toddler in her abandoned SUV and the toddler was hitting the window as he watched his mother in this ghastly mothers’ race.

And then I was there first, before the other mothers because they still had to cross the road and run down the drive.

And the four-year-olds were lined up outside the school with their teacher, a neat little crocodile; and Maisie was with the teacher, with her arm around her, and I saw how shaken the teacher looked. Behind them black smoke poured out of the school like a factory chimneystack, staining the summer-blue sky.

And Adam was outside – outside! – by that bronze statue – and he was sobbing against Rowena and she was holding him tightly. And in that moment of relief, love flooded out from me not only onto my boy but onto the girl who was comforting him.

I allowed myself a second, maybe two, to feel gut-wrenching relief for Adam and then I was looking for Jenny. Bobbed blonde hair, slender. No one like Jenny outside. From the bridge the sirens wailed.

And the four-year-olds were starting to cry as they saw their mothers, running full tilt towards them down the drive, tears streaming down their faces, arms outstretched, waiting for that moment to hold their child.