The crowd had dwindled but the party was not over, not by a long shot. In the kitchen, one of Charlotte’s friends was doing Angel card readings. A karaoke machine was in situ in the living room, drawing most of the crowd. Greg and Martin, their arms slung around each other’s necks, were performing ‘Personal Jesus’, when she felt someone touch the base of her spine, heard Anton’s voice in her ear: ‘Follow me.’

No one noticed them slipping out. He led her down into the garden, moonlight casting the path in a silvery light cutting through the darkness of the lawn, the lumpy mass of the flower beds. After the thrum of the music and voices of the house, the quiet in the garden felt loaded. She kept her eyes on the back of his neck above the navy loose-necked shirt he wore.

Hilary knew what was going to happen. She had known it from the moment she had made the decision to gatecrash the party, the possibility shimmering in her imagination for the entire night. And now they were nearing the end of the garden, he reached back for her hand. Opening the door of the little shed, he drew her inside.

At first he just kissed her, deep and slow. But then it became more intense, his hands down the back of her jeans, pressing her to him, his erection straining against her hip.

‘Take these off,’ he instructed her, tugging gently but insistently at her waistband, and her heart gave a sudden leap. She glanced through the little window, back across the empty garden to where all the windows of the house shone.

It was not the first time they’d had sex, but they had never done anything so risky. And Hilary had never been one of those girls who swapped stories about the weird places they had done it: deserted platforms of late-night railway stations, the women’s toilets in the arts block, the stationery cupboard at a part-time office job. Before Anton, the bravest she’d ever been was to have sex with her college boyfriend in his parents’ bedroom while they were out at the theatre. And always, with Anton, their coupling had taken place in the privacy of her bedroom, in the quiet of the basement flat, or across the road in her new house when the builders weren’t around. There had never been anything like this before.