“Yeah, a really nice one, only I can’t show it to Mum.”

“Gosh. He must’ve won the lottery or something.”

The look on Lily’s face made Rosie feel like the class dunce. “No, duh. He got a job.”

Rosie’s ears pricked up. “Doing what?”

“Dunno. He never said. He showed me a twenty quid once. Have you ever seen a twenty quid?”

“Not very often, no.” She gave Lily the bag of Maltesers. “When did you last see him?”

Lily clasped the bag in her fist. “I can’t remember. He got nowty and all sneaky and didn’t come round much, and he wouldn’t answer my texts.” She looked up at Rosie, her eyes wet with tears. “He won’t ever come round again, will he?”

“No, love. He won’t.”

“I wish he would. I don’t want him to be dead.” Lily began to sob, her chest heaving with misery, and covered her face with both hands.

Rosie went to sit beside her on the bed. She wanted to tell her that everything would be okay, that the grief and loss would become easier to bear, given time, but the promises rang false, and Lily made no attempt to seek comfort from her. So they stayed like that, close but not touching, on a quilt that stank of a dead child’s unwashed socks.

* * *

A two-for-one happy hour and a fault on the local tramline had packed the Blue Door to capacity, and Rosie was struggling to make her order heard above a woman’s shrill laughter and the freestyle jazz blaring from a nearby speaker. She bit the skin at the side of her thumb as the barman fiddled with mint leaves and lime wedges. She hated the place. Hated its trendiness, its well-heeled clientele, and its tendency to serve bar snacks on trowels. More than anything, she hated its choice of music, and when the barman had finally finished mucking about she threw a tenner at him, abandoning her change in her haste to escape to a quieter corner.

“Here,” she said, sliding Steph’s mojito in front of her and taking the opposite seat. “Cheers.” She raised her pint and drained half of it in one chug. She might have caved in to Steph’s wheedling, but she’d be damned if she’d drink some frou-frou monstrosity with a brolly stuck in it.

“Where did Kash end up?” Steph asked.

“He has a home to go to. And he’s teetotal.”

“Ah, yes, of course,” Steph said as if she had forgotten that when she invited him to tag along. “I’ve got a mind like a sieve.”

Rosie opened a bag of scampi fries and offered them to Steph, who grimaced in a manner that could only be described as satisfying.

“God, Roz, put them away. You know I can’t stand them.”