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Against all advice, her own conscience, and applicable road traffic laws, Mary replied.

That’s fine. I’m nearly there.

no need. i have a ride.

Who with?

i have a ride mom!

I’m 2 minutes away.

no. dont come ok? just dont

That was a little stronger than usual. Don’t come? When she was within minutes of arriving? Even by Sally’s lofty standards that was ridiculous. It set her radar pinging. Why, exactly, was this?

Since she was merely around the corner, it would be easy to find out.

She smiled. Her interest piqued, she decided she would go and see what Sally was up to for herself.

The first thing Mary noticed was that there was no car in the driveway. Katie’s mom, Brenda, drove a Rav4; Steve, her dad, had an electric car. A particularly irritating car, as it happened, although it was not the car itself that bothered her.

It was the bumper stickers she found obnoxious, proclaiming from every surface the environmentally aware and socially conscious views of its driver.

Why did he want to share these things with the world? Was it because he thought it might convert someone to his way of thinking? The reality was that anyone who disagreed with him was likely to find the sight of his bumper stickers all the more reason to oppose everything Steve stood for.

Even some of the people who agreed with him might feel the same way.

Because the reason he did it was to present an image to the world, an image that said Hey! I’m one of the good guys! What about you?

The irony was that he was not quite so virtuous as his car would have people believe. At a party at their friends’ house the Christmas before she had left a group of friends outside at the firepit and gone to the bathroom. While she was there, Otis had called her, so she had slipped onto the porch to answer his questions about where his shoes were or whether there was any food in the house.

From the porch she had been able to see into a room that ran the length of the side of the house; Martha, whose house it was, called it the sun room, as it had windows all along the walls.

That night it was dark and empty, the party mainly outside.

But Steve was in there, standing with his back to Mary, staring out at the guests.

At a particular subset of the guests.

A set of teenage girls. Steve was watching them, and, as Mary stood there, she saw him lift his phone and take a photograph. Hi, she said.

He spun around, as though caught out, then managed to smile.

You the photographer?

He looked at her, then at his phone, then back at her.

Precious moments, he said. They’re gone so quickly. He walked past her. Nice to see you.

She had wondered whether to say something to Brenda, but what had he actually done wrong? Take a photo of his daughter? There was nothing wrong with that, but the way he had acted raised her hackles. She had agonized about whether to stop Sally staying at Katie’s, but to do that would be incredibly disruptive to her daughter’s life, and besides, it would require an explanation, and what would she say? That the green-car-driving Steve was a low-level pervert? What proof did she have?

Either way, she was fairly sure that even if he was making good choices for the environment, he was not quite the saint his bumper stickers would suggest.

Either way, neither Brenda’s Rav4 nor Steve’s mobile advert for his virtue was there, which was not unreasonable on a Saturday morning. Brenda was a gym-goer and Steve was probably at the farmers’ market, buying some organic local rutabaga that no one would eat and seeing if he could pick up a new bumper sticker imploring people to Eat Healthy for you and the Planet! Eat Local!

She pulled up and knocked on the door. No one came for some time – at least a minute or two – and she was about to knock again, or maybe go around the back, when the door opened.

It was Katie. ‘Hi,’ she said, a look of intense calm and studied, patently false innocence arranged on her face. ‘Mrs Jordan!’