Necessary as Blood

more easily than he‘d expected, and now he found himself wondering if he would be able to cope.
    ‘Where‘s Mummy?‘ Holly asked for the hundredth time that afternoon. She sat at the kitchen table, kicking her heels against the chair rungs. He had given her one of the fizzy drinks Hazel didn‘t allow, and it had only made her more cross.
    ‘I‘ve told you, pumpkin. She‘s having a girls‘ day out with your Auntie Gemma.‘
    ‘I want to go. I‘m a girl,‘ Holly said with irrefutable logic.
    ‘You can‘t this time. It‘s grown-up girls only.‘
    ‘That‘s not fair.‘
    ‘No, I suppose not.‘ Tim sighed. ‘We could have cheese on toast,‘ he offered.
    ‘I don‘t want toast. I want to play with Toby.‘ Holly‘s pretty mouth, so like her mother‘s, was set in a scowl that would have done justice to a troll.
    ‘We‘ll arrange something.‘
    Gemma and Duncan had gone out of their way to keep up the connection between the children, and they often included Tim in social invitations. Decent of them, but he was always aware there was an element of charity involved, and it made him awkward. Their lives had diverged, the only point of contact being the children, and making the effort to talk casually about Hazel exhausted him. But it was one of the few anchors in his life these days, and he was unwilling to let it go.
    ‘Now,‘ he said to Holly, ‘let‘s stop kicking the chair.‘ Why, Tim wondered as he heard himself, did adults talk to children in the plural? It wasn‘t as if he was kicking the bloody chair. If the inclusiveness was meant to be persuasive, it didn‘t work. Holly kept kicking the chair rungs. He ignored it. ‘We could go to the park after Charlotte visits.‘
    ‘I don‘t want ta play wi‘ Charlotte,‘ said Holly, and Tim heard the Scots accent that had been popping up intermittently since she‘d come back to London. He found it both endearing and annoying, but on the whole wanted his daughter to sound like her old self. ‘Charlotte‘s a baby,‘ she went on with disdain.
    ‘And you‘re a big girl, so you‘ll do a good job of looking after her while I talk to her daddy.‘
    Mollified by this appeal to her bossy nature, Holly‘s mouth relaxed. ‘Can we still go to the park?‘
    Tim glanced at the kitchen clock. Naz and Charlotte were now almost an hour late, and that was very unlike Naz, ‘We‘ll have to see, pumpkin,‘ he told Holly. He tried Naz‘s mobile, but it went straight to voicemail.
    He didn‘t normally see clients on a Saturday, and especially not when he had Holly. But Naz Malik was an old friend — they had been at uni together — and considering Naz‘s situation, Tim had been willing to juggle his own schedule to suit his friend‘s. He‘d thought they could talk in the garden, and the girls could play.
    And Naz had been insistent when he‘d rung that morning, almost distraught, in fact. Why would his friend, who was punctual to the point of obsession, say he had to see Tim, then not show up?
    ‘Let‘s make the cheese on toast,‘ Tim suggested. ‘I‘m sure Charlotte would like some when she gets here.‘ Restless, he added, ‘I‘ll tell you what. We‘ll make a proper Welsh rarebit, like Mummy does.‘ Opening the fridge, he dug out some Cheddar, mustard and milk. Then he foraged in the cupboard for Worcestershire sauce, and cut thick slices of some slightly stale bakery bread.
    ‘It won‘t be as good,‘ Holly intoned with certainty.
    ‘I know.‘ Tim repressed another sigh as he poured milk into the saucepan. ‘But we‘ll do it anyway.‘
    By the time he had spread his cheese sauce on the toast and popped it under the grill until it bubbled, he was beginning to feel seriously worried about Naz. He rang his mobile again, with no result. He took a bite of the toast, which was better than he‘d expected, and watched Holly make gratifying inroads on her slice, but he couldn‘t stop himself from glancing at the clock. It was an old-fashioned one with a big face, and its second hand seemed to tick at glacial speed as the light in the garden grew softer.
    ‘Can we go to the park now, Daddy?‘ Holly scrubbed her greasy hands against her jeans, and Tim absently got up and dampened a cloth to wipe her fingers.
    ‘Not quite yet, pumpkin.‘ He rang Naz‘s mobile once more, then pulled up his home number and redialled.
    It was picked up on the first ring. ‘Mr Naz?‘ The voice was young, female and rising with distress.
    ‘No. Alia?