Her hair is cut to a short bob. People have commented on how it brings out her rosy cheeks and beautiful eyes, but it is the colour she loves: dyed from mouse to mahogany it glosses for the darker seasons and glows warm in the summer months. And it changes the shape of her face. She is no longer so readily identified as the woman from the trial. In the office, where it’s only six of them, it has never come up. Nor has she raised it. And it’s not a drinks-after-work kind of office. They disband at five, each heading off to their own low-key life.

After twenty minutes on the bus, Becky has made it to Islington. She passes the Queen’s Head pub. Scott took her out drinking here a few months ago, pushing a vanilla-scented cocktail into her hand before they both sunk deep into a cracked-leather sofa.

Scott likes the way Becky never tells him he should come out to his parents. Everyone else is mad-keen that he do it, he says, to ‘really rub the gay in their faces before they croak’. He’s just not sure that it’s very kind, is it? Bad enough that he’s torturing them with a lack of grandchildren. But nor does he want to be a Bad Gay, letting the side down. ‘The thing is,’ he tells her, ‘they bought me theatre tokens for my last birthday and said maybe we could all go and see a West End musical together, even though that’s really not my thing, so I think they’re basically trying to tell me they know and they’re fine with it. Don’t you think?’

She has unpicked all her hatred from his face. His eyes no longer appraise women’s bodies for opportunities to drug then abuse them. His smile conceals nothing. If he frowns, it is not a sly flash of his true self – instead it is some passing discontentment, nothing to worry about. In fact, she has become fond of his face. It is open and animated. Scott cries easily. He throws back his head when he laughs. He likes to hold her hand when they’re talking, and she likes that, too.

Scott has a boyfriend at the moment. His name is Ryan. It can’t last, whispers Scott when Ryan is well within earshot, he’s too pretty and too lovely and he makes incredible hummus! Ryan thinks Becky ought to start dating again. ‘You’re wearing too much billowing velvet,’ he tells her. ‘Eventually you’ll be mistaken for a chaise longue and then that’ll be it. You’ll be stuck in some old fruit’s drawing room for the rest of your life. You’re fucking fit, Becky. You need to get out there and get some!’