5 weeks of normality, then our city is not our own again

THE first I knew about new cordons was at 8.05am on Wednesday. I woke to the news that people were in hospital after contact with an “unknown substance”. “It can’t be,” I thought and carried on. At 8.05am my older daughter came in, having only just left for school. She said: “Town Path’s shut” – a 15-minute stroll to the city centre – so she set off the long way around. And that’s the main impact the second poisoning has had. We can’t go where we want to go. Our local paper is reporting from behind one cordon – doors down from the hostel where Dawn Sturgess was living.

I have panicked about whether the nerve agent has been lying around in a “container”. What if a child found it? On May 25 the shopping centre where Sergei and Yulia Skripal were found collapsed finally reopened. We’ve had five and a half weeks of normality.

Now, we need answers to how the couple came into contact with Novichok and assurances life can go on as normal.