Dad and Angie disappear into the bedroom ‘to talk’.

Sergei listens at the door for a while, but all he says he can hear are the odd few heated words and his mum sobbing.

After seeing Angie, and how upset she was about not telling Dad the truth, I believe what she says is true. That there was just never a good time to talk about Janusz. Just like there was never a good time to tell Linford that Sergei had moved in with us.

I believe Angie is a good person. I trust her.

‘Don’t worry, they’ll sort it out,’ I tell Sergei, noticing how quiet he is. ‘Everything will be OK, you’ll see.’

‘I was just thinking about something, Calum. There is something important we still do not know the answer to.’

‘What’s that?’

‘You still have your mystery to be solved.’ He looks at me. ‘If I am not the person vandalizing the centre, then who is?’

I nod. ‘And there’s the even bigger mystery of who was driving the car that mowed me down in broad daylight.’

Dad says the centre is probably going to have to close after this latest damage, and somewhere there’s a crazy driver who is still loose behind the wheel.

‘Why don’t we just camp out there?’ I’m suddenly filled with bravado. ‘We could hang around every afternoon until we find out what’s happening.’

Sergei’s eyes drift to my legs.

‘You can push me in the wheelchair,’ I urge him. ‘And we won’t do anything stupid. We’ll call the police if anything kicks off, maybe get a picture on my phone as evidence. What do you say? We’ve nothing else to do with our time.’

Sergei’s face lights up.

‘We can begin tomorrow afternoon.’ He grins. ‘Maybe we can ask Amelia to help us. I think she could keep a secret.’

Later, Dad and Angie come out of the bedroom and sit side by side on the settee.

Sergei and I stop sorting through the pieces of card required to build his latest project, the Eiffel Tower, and look at them both.

‘We just wanted you to know everything is fine between us,’ Dad says, reaching for Angie’s hand. ‘I understand why it was so hard for Angie to tell me about Janusz. Do you understand that too, Calum?’

‘Yep.’ I nod. ‘Totally.’

Angie takes a deep breath as if she’s steeling herself.

‘Sergei and I want you to know, Pete and Calum, that we respect you and we are sorry for keeping this information from you.’

Angie looks at Dad, and smiles, and he kisses her on the cheek.

Sergei looks at me and smiles, and I smile back. But he’s not getting a kiss. He grins like he knows what I’m thinking.

‘We feel bad missing Calum’s birthday,’ Dad says, looking at me. ‘So when you feel up to it, son, we’re going to have a couple of nights in London to celebrate. All four of us.’

‘Wow, thanks,’ I say. Dad’s never done anything like that for my birthday before and I don’t know whether to believe him or not.

I look at Angie, and she gives me a secret wink. I know she’s telling me it will happen.

Dad goes to the chippy and we all sit in the lounge. When we’ve finished eating and chatting about what we’ll do in London, Angie puts the TV on.

Dad is trying to watch the news headlines while Sergei takes him through the very lengthy process of how he built The Shard.

We just look like an ordinary family, having an ordinary evening in.

My chest feels warm and solid, like everything is going to be OK.

I sit and look out of the window. I can see the street from my chair. It’s dusk now but our curtains are still open. The odd car comes down the street, but all the younger kids have gone inside, so there’s no football on the road and no squealing and laughing.

A lone figure comes into view, someone wearing a zipped-up jacket with a hood, hands buried deep in his pockets. I watch as he crosses over the road and stops outside our gate.

He pulls off his hood so I can see his face and he looks straight up at our window.

He has a black eye and he looks thinner than I remember. Even though he is a long way from me, I think I can see something in his eyes that tells me he wishes things were different. He looks scared.

Without thinking, I raise my hand and nod.

And Linford waves back. Then he pulls his hood up and carries on walking down the street, cutting a lonely figure in the semi-dark.