Stella had married Dave immediately after university, in 1989. That was unusually young for a university graduate to get married but Dave was a strong, impressive man, several years older than her, a biologist and a friend of Kate's then boyfriend, Graham. Holly was born six months after the wedding, in February 1990, and no-one ever quite knew whether Stella had decided to marry Dave because she was pregnant, or whether she was eager to have a child as soon as possible. Their son, Jake followed in 1991. Looking after two very small children proved to be much more stressful and worrying than Stella had realised. Her relationship with Dave became bad-tempered, became bitter, became exhausting, until they decided that divorce was the only possible route for them. From 1994 Stella lived as a single mother, bringing up Holly and Jake in a small house on the edge of Retford, a market town of about 20,000 people in Nottinghamshire. Dave had moved to work for a firm in Nottingham, but every other weekend he travelled to Stella's house to collect the two children. He spent the weekend looking after them in his Nottingham house. Neither he nor Stella wanted Holly and Jake to lose contact with their father.
Two years later, Stella met Ken. Ken was a probation officer who was widowed with a small son, Ethan, born in 1993. Ken's wife had been an African from Nigeria, who had died of cancer when Ethan was two. As a probation officer, Ken worked with criminals - 'offenders' - both before their sentences and when they had finished their sentence. He was particularly concerned with teenage offenders, for it is the job of probation officers to keep a check on them and try to ensure that they do not offend again.
Stella with her children, Holly and Jake, moved into Ken's house in Retford. They did not marry, because Stella felt wary of marriage after that swift wedding to Dave and its unhappy ending. Ken did not care; he wanted love and security for his son and himself, marriage was not important. Ethan became a younger brother for Holly and James. In 1998 Stella and Kate themselves had a son, Noah, who completed the family. They continued to live very happily in the town, which was small enough for 'everyone to know everyone' while Ken commuted to the nearby town of Worksop where the probation service had its offices. Stella felt more or less relaxed, thoroughly enjoying the baby, Noah, who was the kind of small child to delight all those who met him.
Meanwhile Dave, her ex-husband, had moved to Manchester and met a new partner, Jacky. Jacky had married - and divorced -very young and had a son, Simon, who was already twelve when she met Dave. Simon did not much like Dave. He resented his mother's love for this new man, even though he rarely saw his own father. Through difficult teenage years he went off several times to stay with his father, and when he was sixteen he insisted on leaving school and joining the army. Since Jacky disapproved of almost all the actions in which the British army was then engaged, she felt guilty and unsure of what to do. Simon himself insisted that he was much happier, but his visits home were sporadic and unannounced. Jacky and Dave had two girls, Alice and Beth, who took up much of her time, so that she kept telling herself that with two little girls to look after she would have to accept her son's choice in life.
So daily life for these two families continued much as they expected until Holly turned 14 in 2004. Suddenly she metamorphosed into a difficult, awkward, irritable teenager. Up till that point she and Jake and Ethan seemed to get along very well together, but now she began complaining that her stepfather, Ken, was 'too bossy', and that Jake and Ethan were always being given privileges which she did not have. Her complaints were not very coherent, but Stella and Ken found them persistent and upsetting. One day she ran away - to her father, Dave who had continued to keep in touch with his older children. Even so, he was surprised and disconcerted when Holly arrived on his doorstop asking to live with him. She said she loved her half-sisters in Manchester but she couldn't stand her brother and stepbrother, although she did admit that she loved little Noah.
After much discussion between the two families (and more discussion with Holly's school) it was agreed that she should live with her father and her step-mother, Jacky, in Manchester. Meanwhile, Ken had been offered a promotion in the probation service but it would mean his moving to Nottingham. Housing in Nottingham was much more expensive than housing in the Retford where he and Stella lived. Could they afford to move?
Stella pointed out that once they were in Nottingham, she could easily find a decently paid job, and so they would be able to afford a house. Meanwhile, they could rent, but they would need to rent somewhere reasonably cheap until they had managed to sell their house in the market town. Ken agreed; he was very keen to take the job but he had a wife and three children to support. (The agreement among the adults had been that Dave would take full financial responsibility for Holly, and would give Stella a smaller allowance for Jake. In practice, Ken felt himself to be responsible for all three boys.)
So Stella rang Kate in mid-2006. Could they rent the top flat in her house? Kate protested: It would be wonderful to have Stella and Ken so close, but the flat was not big enough for two teenage boys and an eight-year-old. 'Oh, we can manage!' said Stella when she had seen the flat. 'It will only be for a short time.' And Kate, thinking of her spacious home below, agreed.
In fact the move proved to be very complicated. Stella and young Noah stayed in their old home for several months until they were able to sell it. Meanwhile Ken with Jake and Ethan moved into the top flat, because he wanted both boys to start at their new school in Nottingham at the beginning of the school year in September 2006. Ken was very busy with his new job, the two boys would wander back home from their new school, often coming in later than Ken wished - and Stella rushed between her old home and Nottingham, looking for a house which they could afford to buy. Meanwhile Kate found herself feeding the two boys, and sometimes Ken, too. Stella and Ken eventually moved into their new home, a three-bedroom house about two kilometres from Ken's work, in November 2007.
As soon as they were settled in Nottingham, Stella started looking for a job. She found work in a company dealing with computer parts who needed a French speaker. Stella had studied French at university and although she did not think this was an exciting job, it was reasonably paid. Besides, she could see that she would need to put some of her energy into dealing with Jake (who was starting A-levels), Ethan (who was starting his GCSE course) and Noah, who had recently joined a children's theatre group, along with Emmeline Khan, and who expected Stella and Ken to listen to him learning his part every evening!
Stella was an emotional person, the sort of person who is full of life one day, and nervous or angry the next day. After the divorce from Dave, life had been painful and bewildering until she met Ken. Ken was temperamentally very calm, but still grieving for his wife who had died so young. They turned out to be very good for each other; Stella gave him sympathy, embraced Ethan as her son (he was too young to remember his mother), and enough anger to keep life 'exciting', as young Jake said. Ken who was professionally trained to deal with disturbed and angry people, absorbed Stella's anger and turned it into gentle laughter. So Stella felt that she and Ken (and Dave in Manchester) had managed rather well to bring up their families; in all the essentials they were emotionally stable and happy.
Then she had a worried phone call from Dave. Holly had seemed to settle down in Manchester, but now...
'Drugs? In trouble with the police? Bad friends?...' asked Stella anxiously, ready to panic.