‘Get some ice on that when you get home,’ she advised, and gave me a brief rundown of the symptoms of concussion while I looked mournfully up at the flat and wished that I actually had a home these days.

Fay picked up the tomatoes. She returned my collection of bags to me, and then eventually she and Costana dissolved into the chilly day, although Fay wanted to stay, I could tell even in my dazed state.

‘Please go now, Fay,’ I said, and she tried and failed not to look put out. I heard Alex assuring her he’d take good care of me. Fox patted my hand and said he’d talk to me later.

Then Alex practically carried me to the pub on the corner and bought me a double whisky and, after I pleaded, cigarettes from the machine. He ordered fruit juice for himself. The landlord greeted Alex like a long-lost friend, which he was, I supposed sadly. Sitting in the corner booth, I hugged Digby to me. My teeth kept chattering though it was warm and fuggy in the pub.

‘What’s going on, Mag?’ Alex asked, eyeing my drink.

‘You tell me.’ I lit a cigarette. ‘Can you get me another whisky please?’

‘You haven’t finished that one yet.’ He frowned. ‘So why weren’t you at work?’

‘Why weren’t you?’

‘I’m meant to be getting on a plane back to Glasgow in about’, he checked his watch, ‘an hour.’

‘You’d better go then.’

‘Yes, I better had.’ But he showed no sign of moving. ‘And you?’

‘I’m having a crisis,’ I said, and drained my glass. ‘Another one. Please get me that drink now.’

So he did. And another orange for himself – apparently. I was so suspicious I even tasted it.

‘What kind of crisis?’ he asked, ignoring the insult, pushing my whisky towards me.

‘An everything crisis,’ I said mournfully.

‘Right. One of those.’

I stared at the wall opposite, at the little etching of a knife-grinder on London Bridge serving a bonneted lady. ‘My life’s falling apart, Alex.’

He sighed deeply. ‘It’s not, Maggie, honestly. It just – it probably just seems a bit like that.’

‘Someone’s out to get me and I’m really scared. Sometimes I think I might be –’

‘What?’

I couldn’t bear to say it. Turning out like my mother. I shook my head. ‘And I don’t trust any of you –’

‘Thanks very much.’

‘It’s a strange way to live, isn’t it?’ The world seemed to be retreating. Or perhaps it was due to the whisky. ‘And I wish that bloody girl would get off my case.’

‘Which girl? The redhead?’

‘She’s not a bloody redhead. She’s a nutter.’

‘I thought she was a friend.’

‘Hardly.’

He chewed his thumbnail. ‘She’s very –’