Rosie’s arms were beginning to tire. She wobbled another couple of feet, passing the bottom of Jem’s bed and the pair of slippers she’d designated as her midway marker. “Have you chosen your lunch?”

“Cornish pasty. And no, you can’t steal half of it.” Giving up on her book, Jem pushed her glasses to the top of her head and stretched her arms out. She was only wearing a thin T-shirt, and as the fabric pulled taut across her chest, Rosie overbalanced, colliding with a bedside cabinet.

“You okay there?” Jem sounded amused, and she didn’t lower her arms.

“Yep, I am definitely okay.” Rosie righted herself. “I meant to do that.”

Jem laughed and came to stand in front of her. The heat of the room had dashed pink across her cheeks, and her eyes were bright with mischief. “You should sit down before you fall down,” she said, going up on tiptoes to nibble the end of Rosie’s nose.

Rosie groaned, lowering herself carefully into one of the chairs they’d set by the window. Her legs felt like jelly, and it wasn’t wholly due to exertion. “I want to go home,” she said. “I want to watch crap films with you and Fluffy, and mix my painkillers with alcohol, and fall asleep in your arms.”

Jem perched on the side of the chair and ran her fingers through Rosie’s hair, separating the tangled strands. “We’ll have a serious chat about option B later,” she said. “But we can pencil the other two in for tonight. If Harriet said early evening, she meant early evening, so we have”—she did the sums on her fingers—“about four more hours to kill.”

The knock on the door would have been a welcome distraction, had Steph’s outline not shown clearly through the glass.

“Just when I thought the day couldn’t get any worse,” Rosie said.

“Come in,” Jem called. Then, quieter, “You’re not allowed to weaponise your crutches unless severely provoked.” She stayed where she was, casually parked at Rosie’s side as if daring Steph to make an issue of it, but Steph sank into the chair opposite, looking so weary that Rosie would have offered her a brew had it not involved getting up again.

“Sorry to come unannounced,” Steph said. She fiddled with her bag, drawing a file out of it and then a box of Special Toffee. She set the box on the windowsill, tapping its top with one finger. “For you to share.”

“Thanks,” Rosie said. She wasn’t sure what to do with this sombre, non-combative version of Steph. It wasn’t one she had ever encountered. Jem must have been similarly wrong-footed, because she cleared her throat and shifted to the edge of the chair’s arm.

“Can I get you a coffee?” she asked.