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I’d never have considered going on holiday if it hadn’t been for the leaflet that came through the door a few days ago.

HOUSE SWAP URGENTLY NEEDED

My wife, Tara, and I are desperately looking for a place to stay for a week, maybe two. Your property would be ideal as we need somewhere close to the hospital asap to be near our precious daughter, who is undergoing a life-saving heart operation. We are willing to swap our beautiful, recently refurbished house in Cornwall with sea views. If you think you can help, please contact Philip Heywood.

His mobile phone number was written at the bottom of the page.

I dismissed it at first. I was in a rush to get to work. I’d been off sick for two weeks, ever since the fire and the subsequent miscarriage. My boss, Felicity Ryder, had insisted I take paid leave until after the holidays, but I wanted to go in for the last day of term to see my class and to wish them a good Easter break. I’d begun to care about those children. I felt responsible for their education, worried that the supply teacher hustled in to take over wouldn’t understand their needs like I did. I also missed the school: my classroom walls decorated with the children’s brightly coloured artwork, the camaraderie in the staff room, the shrieks of joy in the playground, gossiping with Cara, the young teaching assistant who worked alongside me, even the smell of disinfectant in the corridor. So I’d stuffed the leaflet in my handbag on my way out the door – and thought no more about it for the next few hours.

I’d been dismayed to see the evidence of the fire; the school hall had been redecorated and a new floor installed, but the burnt smell still lingered as though seeping through the fresh paint and the newly laid parquet. The dining room, where the fire was thought to have originated, was still out of bounds. When I pressed my face up to the glass doors I could see the blackened hole in the ground where the ovens had been. It was a depressing sight. The children had been told to bring in packed lunches until the kitchens were up and running again, and they sat, hunched over hummus, organic vegetables and cartons of juice, in the classrooms instead.

It was as the parents came to collect their children at the end of the day – congratulating me for my bravery and asking after Celeste – that the idea came to me. Mrs Hunting, Theo’s mum, touched my cast lightly and told me I deserved to get away somewhere. ‘You’ve had such a bad time of it, Ms Elliot,’ she’d said, in the sort of voice you’d use on someone whose close relative had just died. ‘It could have ended so badly. Celeste could have been killed in that fire if it wasn’t for you. It doesn’t bear thinking about.’ I knew she was contemplating her own child too. I touched my stomach automatically, thinking of the one I’d lost.

The incident had been all over the newspapers, much to my horror. There was even a picture in the Mail of me playing the guitar, surrounded by kids, fringe in my eyes. It must have been taken when I’d first joined and was the only photograph the school had of me.

A story about a school fire wouldn’t have made it past the local press if it hadn’t been for the fact that I’d successfully led not just my year group, but Celeste Detonge, the granddaughter of a famous stage actor, to safety. We’d been the only year group in the building that day; Reception and Year One had been on school trips. Cara had started to panic as the smoke filled the school hall where we were practising our assembly, and I’d had to keep calm even though the screech of the alarms made the memories of another time, another fire, slam into me, winding me. But I’d forced down my own terror, instead concentrating on getting the children, and Cara, out of the burning building. Celeste had tripped and fallen and I’d rushed back in to the hall, the smoke clogging my throat, blinding me and making me trip over too. I landed badly but ignored the pain as I scooped her up into my arms and carried her to safety. I don’t think I’m brave. I did what anyone would have done in the circumstances. I’m a teacher, a role that I love, that I live for. Those children are my first priority.

It was when I was having my arm X-rayed that the bleeding started. I’d been just days away from the twelve-week mark.

‘Are you going anywhere nice this Easter?’ Mrs Hunting had asked. ‘You deserve a holiday after what you’ve been through.’ Her sympathetic words made me realise how lovely it would be to get away somewhere. A proper break. Since Jamie had started his own business we had been strapped for cash. We hadn’t been away since our honeymoon, and that had only been a five-day trip to the Isle of Wight. After what happened in Thailand I’d been too fearful to travel abroad, too scared to get on an aeroplane, convinced it would crash. So we’d had the odd long weekend or week away in England instead. It played on my mind on the walk home from school, that enticing line about a beautiful house in Cornwall with sea views. I imagined a little cottage somewhere, maybe in a fishing village like the one in Doc Martin. I thought the sea air would do Jamie good. He worked from home so he could take his laptop. By the time I arrived back at the flat I had convinced myself it was the answer to our prayers.

I could hear Jamie on the phone in our spare room, which he used as an office. I flicked the kettle on, made a fuss of Ziggy and started on dinner. It was difficult to cook with one arm in a sling, but Florrie, Jamie’s older sister, had kindly made a batch of cottage pies and pasta sauces which I’d frozen. I grabbed a pie from the freezer and heated up the oven. Then, while the pie was cooking, I settled myself at the kitchen table in front of my laptop to google Philip Heywood.

It took longer than normal, having to type with one hand – it frustrated me how everything took twice as long – but then a list of Philip Heywoods popped up on-screen; a musician in the US, a biologist in Australia, a plastic surgeon in a private clinic in London. I clicked on the private clinic link and a photo came up of a respectable-looking man in his late forties with short, dark hair, greying at the sides, and a moustache. Could that be the same Philip Heywood? A bit more digging and I’d found his Facebook page, although the settings were too restricted to see more than two profile photos. One showed him on a deserted beach with his arm around a younger, very attractive woman with dark hair. His wife? And were they in Cornwall?

Jamie was still talking so I searched for ‘Philip Heywood + Cornwall’. A photo came up of a local benefit in Truro; Philip was dressed in black tie, his arm around the same woman. She was wearing a strapless floor-length emerald dress, her hair a cloud of dark curls around her head and shoulders. The caption read: ‘Avid supporters of the charity, surgeon Philip Heywood and his wife, Tara’. I studied their photo for a while, their wide smiles, their white teeth, their perfect skin. They looked like a successful, highly regarded couple. When their daughter became ill, they must have considered booking into a hotel, but found there wasn’t one close enough to the hospital. Surely they could be trusted to live in our flat for a week or two if I was in their home?

I then searched for Philip Heywood and ‘daughter’. A photo filled the screen of Philip, Tara and a girl in her early teens with a beautiful smile, sandy coloured hair and the distinctive features of Down’s syndrome. I skimmed through the article, a small piece on his charity work. I was disappointed to note there was nothing more personal, no insight into his marriage or what type of father he was. All I could glean was that he was a very successful consultant who gave his time generously to various charities. But by the time I had finished reading my mind was made up.

Jamie didn’t take as much convincing as I’d thought he would. I had my spiel ready: I was on holiday for two weeks anyway, it wouldn’t cost us anything, he deserved a rest, he could take his laptop as I was sure there would be Wi-Fi, I had never been to Cornwall, the Heywoods looked and sounded respectable, their daughter had Down’s syndrome and was obviously seriously ill if she needed a life-saving operation, we’d be doing a good thing … He sat opposite me, his long fingers entwined around a mug of coffee, not saying a word. When I finished he got up to put his mug in the sink, shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘OK. If you sort it all out, then we’ll go.’

I waited until we’d eaten dinner and Jamie was out walking Ziggy before ringing the mobile number. Philip Heywood had a warm voice with a Yorkshire accent similar to mine. He sounded younger than I’d expected as he enquired which part of the north I was from. I didn’t tell him, just made out I’d moved around a lot. ‘A week in your flat would work out wonderfully,’ he said, and I could hear the relief in his voice. We discussed where we would leave the keys – at the petrol station near his house for him, and with our upstairs neighbour, Evelyn, for us – and promised to ring each other if there were any problems. It was arranged for Saturday, two days later. I put the phone down full of excitement. How could anything go wrong?