Lucy sat in the back of Hunter’s Maybach, behind the driver, naturally, where the leg room was ample but not the length of a child’s bed as it was on Hunter’s side, with the passenger seat moved fully forward. She had a pint of latte in a cup holder couched in the diamond-patterned white leather of the armrest next to her and an ignored file on her lap, page after page of bullet points. Bullet points and soundbites were made for a man like Hunter, whose combination of aggression and inattention needed bites and bullets to keep him focused. She had intended to revise these pages so as to be emphatically on top of everything, but since yesterday everything had been emphatically on top of her, even though the Xanax gave her a little shelter from the catastrophe, like one of those fragile enclaves in a collapsed building, where an earthquake survivor waits for rescue in the dust and the dark.

After leaving Queen Square the previous morning, Francis had apologised and said that he had to return to Sussex for work, but that he would see her soon. He gave her a heartfelt hug, in the most literal sense that she felt a pulse of strength and sympathy from his heart to hers, a transfer of energy that was palpable and astonishing, although Francis behaved as if nothing had happened.

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘And thank you for coming along,’ she added, in case she had been imagining the whole thing and was making too much of the embrace. On their way back to Belsize Park, she said to Olivia what an amazing person Francis was, partly to please her, but mostly because she couldn’t think of anyone else who could have handled with such unobtrusive but deep engagement meeting a stranger who is almost immediately diagnosed with cancer.

Since they both worked at home, Martin and Lizzie Carr often had a break in the middle of the day and so Lucy asked Olivia, in case they ran into her parents, not to mention the tumour. Much as Lucy loved the Carrs, she needed time to adjust before deciding on the right balance between discretion and confession. She wanted to spend some time alone with Olivia, but as they slipped into the house, Lizzie happened to be in the hall and of course invited them to join her and Martin in the kitchen. She was so affectionate and welcoming that Lucy couldn’t refuse.