‘And you don’t think I felt like that too?’ Her mind flashes back to the summers they’ve spent in the garden, a jumble of images of Max sitting under the tree reading The Times, her planting flowers, mowing the lawn, the girls running around in their swimming costumes, spraying each other with water. The time he helped her put up the archway into the girls’ play den, holding the metal posts while he banged them into the ground. Planting clematis up one side and honeysuckle up the other; the memory speeds up and suddenly she can see the plants growing in front of her eyes until they’ve merged as one at the top of the gothic spike.

There is a rustle in the bushes bringing her back. A neighbour’s black cat darts out and disappears across the lawn into the darkness. A shiver runs through her body. Her mother’s voice in her head, clear as anything, telling her it’s another ominous sign. The dogs start scratching again at the utility room door, so loudly it echoes around the garden.

‘Let’s go in.’ She hurries Max inside and closes the patio doors. They sit on the sofa, closer this time. She can smell him, his stale sweat and whiskey on his breath. She remembers what her mother told her about men like him, how sly and tricksy they are. She pours large shots of whiskey into a couple of glasses.

‘The police searched for your body for four days. They’ll want to know you’re alive.’

‘I promise I’ll tell them.’

‘So where did you go?’ She brings the amber liquid to her lips and knocks it back. Like fire through a tunnel, she can visualise it burning its way down to her stomach.

‘I’ve been staying in a bedsit mostly.’

She stares at him until he looks away. She refills the empty glasses. The dogs are whining and one of them barks.

‘Shall I go and let them out?’ he says.

‘I thought you had something to tell me.’ She hears her mother’s voice, not her own. She pours the whiskey into her mouth, letting it pool there, numbing the skin, before she swallows it down.

‘I know I should have told you this straight away… but I didn’t know how you’d take it and I don’t want to lose you.’

She slams the glass down on the table. Her body is a furnace, ready to blow. Max fumbles in his pocket and draws out a half-flattened box of cigarettes. The dogs start up a chorus of barking and howling.

‘Still not given up?’ Maddy shakes her head. ‘Find it hard giving things up, don’t you?’ She grabs the packet and tosses it on the floor.