Over the next couple of hours a handful of people came out of the vennel entrance, presumably employees of Red Box or people from the studio. No Liam, though. She searched more online, didn’t find anything useful. She was jittery from the coffee and wondered if she’d missed him while looking at her phone. She was about to go around the square again when Liam appeared and walked briskly past the café. She turned away as he passed then got her things and left, following him back the way he’d come. He got to the corner of Bernard Street then turned into The King’s Wark, a pub on the corner.

She waited a full minute then approached, pulling the door open. She’d drunk in here before, a woman her age had drunk in most pubs in Edinburgh and Leith. According to the plaque on the wall, this place had been around for 600 years, since some royal guy needed a place for a quick pint before getting on his ship at Leith Docks.

Liam was sitting at the bar drinking craft lager and looking at his phone. She went to the other end of the bar, faced away from him and ordered a double gin and tonic from a young guy with 112sculpted pecs and oversized glasses. The place was busy with office stragglers and early-evening diners. It was dingy, blackened stone walls, small windows, candles on the dinner tables. The layout was labyrinthine and she found a cubbyhole table where she had a view of Liam.

He smiled at a barmaid. They chatted, the body language suggesting this wasn’t the first time. He said something and she laughed. She was early twenties, tall and plain-faced, with a tight body in bar T-shirt and leggings. She might be flattered by his attention, and he would definitely be flattered by hers. They talked for a few minutes then she went to serve someone. His gaze lingered on her arse as she walked away, then he went back to his phone.

Was this it, the barmaid? Then what was the stuff at the studio? Maybe the two were connected somehow. She thought about men looking at women the way Liam looked at the barmaid. Hardly a crime, men would argue, but it built a bigger picture, a culture of objectification that changed the dynamic. Jenny had internalised it all her life, taken part in it, she maybe even enjoyed the attention when it wasn’t knuckle-dragging or harassing. But wasn’t that just a kind of Stockholm syndrome? Men treat you like shit so often that when you find one who’s not a complete bastard you’re so grateful you jump into bed with him. But that line of thinking turned it into a war. She’d felt confrontational for a long time after Craig left, men were the fucking enemy, their bad behaviour excused by society, women going along with it.