The boy held the note as long as he could, hardly noticing the heat burning his fingers, then he let the scraps fly out into the air like the flaming wreck of a paper plane. He watched until the flames were pinched out by the night and the note was no more.

... the first time he saw her was the last and this grief slowly grew inside him and began to replace the old grief, until, eventually, the loss of both people settled in Jack’s stomach and he thought only of the first, wearing the memory like a layer of skin, tucked away just beneath the surface.

William followed Dr Poots downstairs into a dark room that smelled strongly of disinfectant, like an operating theatre or a caretaker’s closet. An electric light stuttered into life overhead then hummed along steadily.