“I didn’t tell anyone I was coming today,” said Lissa. “Because I didn’t know if I could manage it . . . and because I wanted . . . I wanted to spend it with . . .”

Lissa’s lip was wobbling. Kim-Ange leaned into the cab and gave her a big full-body hug.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “You did the right thing. Go back to Scotland, pack up, and I’ll see you back here in a couple of weeks. Don’t worry about that loser. I will make his life absolute hell also.”

“Don’t put prawns in the curtains, because when I come back they will still be my curtains,” said Lissa.

“Okay.”

Lissa checked her phone again.

“Put your phone down! You know you will hear from him. Tomorrow, with some bullshit excuse,” said Kim-Ange fussily. “Then it’ll all pick up again, the flirting and the little jokes and everything, until it comes time to meet again and then the same thing will happen. Trust me. I know men.”

“I know,” said Lissa.

“Is she going to spew in my cab, love?” said the taxi driver.

“No!” they both said together.

“Give me the phone,” said Kim-Ange. “Come on, hand it over. You’re pissed and in possession of a phone, it’s a deadly weapon.”

Lissa sighed. Kim-Ange grabbed it and hit a few buttons. She’d done this before.

“I’ve blocked his number. Stopped any recriminatory texts.”

“I’ve got his number at home.”

“Yes, but that will be in the morning and then you can think about what you’re doing. In between sending me a thank-you bouquet.”

The meter ticked on.

“Don’t . . . don’t lose the messages,” mumbled Lissa.

“Messages are saved, but you can’t send any more and neither can he,” said Kim-Ange. “Not till you sober up.”

“Thanks,” said Lissa, flinging her arms around her again. “You’re a great friend.”

“I am,” said Kim-Ange grimly. “Now I am going back to set fire to his bed.”

“It’s my bed!”

“Oh yes. I’ll think of something.”

It felt suddenly unbearably unfair to Lissa that Kim-Ange was going back to Cormac and she wasn’t.

“Maybe he is dead,” she said, “from saving a bunch of children from a burning orphanage. Even then I still hate him.”

“In you go,” said Kim-Ange, slamming the door behind her as the cab shot off into the night.

Chapter 76

There are several ways of getting from South Bank to Euston in half an hour: Thameslink, the Northern line, the number 63 bus, a black cab, which will do puzzling things around Bedford Square—but if you are in a tearing hurry and, frankly, a bit of a panic, you could always try running it. I wouldn’t, personally. But then it very much depends on whether you are thinking straight.

Cormac wasn’t thinking straight at all.