‘I was calling you, Maggie.’ He reached me. ‘Outside. You didn’t stop. You dropped this.’

‘Thanks.’ I held my hand out for the player. ‘I – I didn’t hear you.’

‘You’re bleeding,’ he said.

‘Oh God, not you as well.’ I looked around desperately for that drink.

‘Blood.’

‘Yes, I’m bleeding blood, Joseph. It’s quite usual, I think.’

‘Maggie!’ Bel reprimanded softly.

Joseph’s white face was even paler than normal. ‘I’m not very good with blood.’ He started to sway.

Brilliant. ‘Well, let’s go and sit down, shall we?’

Bel’s brother Nigel crept up behind her, sweeping her into an enormous bear-hug. ‘Let me go,’ she giggled, kicking her legs like a toddler, and I caught the expression on Joseph’s face as he watched. Something I recognised as longing.

‘Come on, you,’ I said, propelling Joseph to a corner, pulling my sleeves over my still-stinging palms in an attempt to stop him from fainting. ‘Okay now?’

He nodded. We sat there for a moment in silence, two lost souls in a sea of revelry.

‘So?’ I prompted eventually. ‘I don’t mean to be rude – but why exactly are you here?’

‘It’s just,’ Joseph was murmuring, so quiet now I could hardly catch the words over the crowd’s babble. He was staring at his feet. ‘I couldn’t go home without – well, I just wanted to explain something.’ He looked like he might cry.

I took a big slug of wine. ‘Go on.’

‘I wanted to own up.’ He met my eye for practically the first time today, and his forehead was all sweaty. ‘It was me. I did take Donna’s book.’

‘I see.’ I felt no emotion at all. ‘Why?’

‘I dunno.’ He picked at the bright label on his beer-bottle, droplets of moisture rolling down the brown glass, more droplets rolling off his head. ‘I was showing my initiative.’

‘And how was that then?’ And then the penny dropped. ‘Oh God, Joseph. That’s what you were doing the other night in Charlie’s office.’

‘What?’ He stared at his drink.

‘You were selling Donna’s numbers. Oh, you stupid, stupid boy.’

‘Don’t call me that.’

‘Well, weren’t you?’

‘I get a bit – a bit kind of confused sometimes.’

‘Confused?’ I stared at him.

‘I have a bit of a problem with depression. I have to take a – a medication, you know.’

That word: depression. How it stalked me.

‘What’s that got to do with stealing numbers? Who were you selling them to?’

‘It doesn’t matter.’ He shrugged. ‘I just mean sometimes I don’t know what I’m doing.’

‘It does matter, I’m afraid, Joseph. I’m sorry for you, really, if you’re depressed, but it’s hardly an excuse. What you’ve done is thoroughly dishonest, and highly illegal too, I’m sure.’

Behind him Bel and Johnno were preparing to go through to the dinner table.