She puts her hands to her belly now, feels the sagging skin beneath the flimsy cotton of her nightdress. She thinks of Cian, the moment of that hard thunk on the floor. Her stomach contracts, nausea rising up her throat. Downstairs, a door closes. She knows she must prepare to leave.

Slowly now, she eases herself out of bed. It’s an effort to move, her whole body weighted, as if it is drenched with water. The temptation to sink back into the bedclothes pulls at her, but she knows she cannot be found like this. Already, her mind is running to ways of escape. If she tiptoes downstairs, and if the kitchen door is closed, she could slip down the inner stairs to her flat without being noticed. But what if he were to come out of the kitchen and see her like this, clad in only her long T-shirt? She looks around for her dressing-gown but it’s not there.

Opening the door carefully, she goes slowly, tiptoeing across the landing. In the bathroom, she checks for her dressing-gown. Frustrated, she returns to the landing. A murmur of voices rises up through the floorboards, and as she stands there, biting the edge of a nail, made anxious by the thought of being caught, her eyes find the open door to Anton’s bedroom, and there, on the floor by his bed, a laundry basket with her clothes. Quickly and quietly, she hurries over to it. It feels strange to be in there – in his private space – dressed only in Jake’s T-shirt. She rummages in the basket and finds her dressing-gown.

She is slipping it around her shoulders, her gaze on the floor, when she spies the corner of a box peeping out from under the bed. A shoebox missing its cover. She leans forward to push it back under the bed, when her eye is caught by the vividness of colour – a small bright splash of reddish-pink. Drawn to it, she reaches into the box and takes out the flower. It’s a snap-dragon, pressed and dry with age, but still a wash of bright cerise. The paper within which it had nestled is blue and dense with writing. Leah takes it out, meaning to place the flower within it, then return the letter to the box unread, but her eye is caught.

My darling, my only love,

My thoughts are with you constantly, imagining where you are at this moment, what you are doing. I am consumed by you – every meal I eat, every conversation I have, every place I go, it’s always you there with me in my heart. I feel you inside me, my love. I carry you around with me always, and in that way I can keep you with me. I can keep you free.