He stood up. ‘I want to make tracks. You have a car, I take it?’

‘Yes.’ She peered at her watch groggily.

‘I’ll drive,’ he said. ‘You’ll still have way too much alcohol in your system.’

‘I can drive.’ The treacle-topped voice was practised, like a newsreader reliant on autocue. ‘I just need something to eat first. So does that puppy.’

‘You’ll only throw it up. Liquids are better. You need hydrating. We’ll stop for breakfast on the way.’ He went into the bathroom, gathering their still-damp jeans which he wrapped in a plastic laundry bag and rammed in his pack along with the rest of her clothes. ‘You’ll have to tell the hotel about the damage the dog’s done.’

She was looking disconsolately round at the chewed flexes, chair legs and soft furnishings. ‘I need to make a list.’

‘Take photos on your phone. It’s quicker.’

‘The battery’s dead.’ She picked up a brace of phones, both screens blacked out. ‘So’s Mummy’s.’

There was something about women of his own generation who still said ‘Mummy’ that grated on Luca.

‘Why do you have your mother’s phone?’

‘She’s staying with friends. She left it behind.’

Now he knew why Ronnie’s number had gone to voicemail every time he’d called last night. So much for thinking she’d meet him at the airport, small and indomitable, arms thrown wide, that infectious laugh already coaxing him out of deep hibernation.

Instead, the chalk-faced daughter was standing in front of him. He could smell her hangover, sense the cold sweat and embarrassment. They were the same height, their eyes level. Hers were wide set and rust hazel, the whites bloodshot, nothing like her mother’s bright, piercing blue.

‘I really am sorry about last night,’ she faltered. He noticed how much her hands were shaking, belying the calmness in her voice, nails chewed right down. ‘There’s absolutely no excuse for behaving as I did.’ The apologetic drunk was a lot more buttoned-up when sober, it seemed. ‘I’d rather you didn’t say anything to my mother. To anybody, really.’

‘You could use some help, maybe.’

‘It was a one-off. New year, new me and all that.’ The soft voice was lullaby reassuring, as if she was reading a bedtime story, although she couldn’t look him in the eye for more than a split second at a time. ‘I overdid it, that’s all.’ She held up her hands to underline the point, then grabbed at the slipping breeches. ‘I wasn’t about to swing from a ceiling beam by my belt – I’m truly fine.’

He tilted his head to look at her, finding the soothing voice hard to read. Then he reached into his bag and pulled out a belt to hand her. ‘Try this.’

She looked at it in white-faced horror.

‘It’s to hold up your trousers,’ he said wearily. ‘Put it on and I’ll drive you home.’

She stooped to pick up her discarded bra and knickers and hurried into the bathroom.

*

Hoodie over her bobble hat, Dua Lipa singing ‘New Rules’ in her ears, Carly swallowed yawns as she pushed the muck barrow over the damp cobbles, wrists jiggling like a car’s suspension, shoulders balancing like its axis, aware of the old man’s eyes on her, berry-black and critical.