I looked at Alex, confused.

‘Jealous?’ Malcolm winked at me. I bit my lip. ‘I mean to Tom’s wedding, of course. To little Clarissa. Her of the child-bearing hips.’

Luckily Clarissa was out of earshot.

‘Pa!’ Alex snarled. ‘For fuck’s sake!’

‘Language, Alexander.’

‘You know what, Malcolm –’ I had the door open by now, freedom beckoning me into the freezing November morning. He looked so bloody pleased with himself, swollen and pigeon-chested with pride, the Englishman in his self-made castle. ‘It’s no wonder your family have such terrible problems. You’re such a complete shit.’

It wasn’t until I was sitting on the tube to work, sandwiched between a large group of hijabed Ethopian women who squawked across me uproariously, that the worm crawled back into my brain. I stared at the greasy youth opposite, who was listening to such loud thrash-metal I was surprised he didn’t have a nosebleed; I stared at his spray-painted boots.

Despite all his protestations, those other boots – Alex’s filthy Timberlands that I’d tripped over in Malcolm’s hall – had been splashed with something bright, something that in my haste to leave I hadn’t registered properly. Something suspiciously like red paint.

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Seventeen

‘Bacon, egg, chips.’ In the café on The Cut, the skin around the waitress’s vermilion-painted mouth was crepey, the bright colour seeping vertically into the fan of fine lines above her top lip as she leaned over Sally to bang my plate down. I gazed miserably at the insipid-looking bacon that curled wetly up at me.

‘On second thoughts, I’m not that hungry. I might go and have a fag.’

‘Don’t be silly.’ Sally pinched a soggy chip. ‘You need to eat. It’s good for shock.’

‘I thought that was sweet tea? That’s what they always have in soap operas.’ I poked the rubbery egg with my fork; the yolk surprised me by exploding. ‘Oh, bollocks. I was saving that bit.’

‘Maggie.’

I actually jumped. Joseph slid into the seat opposite us, slightly out of breath. ‘The police are here, Maggie. They’re asking for you.’

‘Police?’ I scrunched my brow at him. ‘Here?’ I glanced around. The tattooed builder on the next table bit lustily into his egg sandwich and gave me a wink. ‘Where?’

‘At the office, I mean.’ Joseph was flustered.

I stared at him. ‘I didn’t call the police.’

‘No, but you should have done,’ Sally said tartly, pinching another chip. ‘Not very crispy, these.’

‘You didn’t, did you, Sal?’

‘What?’

‘Ring them.’

‘No, I didn’t. But I think it’s a bloody good idea you talk to them. Unless –’

‘Unless what?’

‘Unless you’re – well –’

‘What?’

‘You’re, you know. Imagining it.’ Sally couldn’t quite meet my eye.

‘Er – imagining foot-high letters on my door? Hardly.’

‘No, of course not.’ She looked relieved.