She laughed to herself and looked up, focusing on the people around her. There were just four tables crammed into this chamber of the basement, two slightly larger tables with students squished around them, and across the room another small table, where a man in a cream suit and a white-banded black fedora sat facing her. He lounged on his chair like a colonial throwback, smoking a cigarette. His eyes and most of his face were shaded under the brim of the hat, but Petra could tell he was staring at her. She tried to make contact with the dark void for a second before the man brought his cigarette up to his mouth and she flinched away. Self-conscious, she concentrated on unscrewing the cap of her bottle and pouring more water into her glass. Her hand twitched and she spilled a little on the table. She took a napkin and blotted it before looking up at the man again.

He was gone.

She looked again, just to make sure, craning to see past the kids at the table in front of her in case he’d just moved out of her eyeline. But he was gone.

She replayed her actions in her mind. Pouring, spilling, wiping. It couldn’t have taken more than ten seconds. But maybe that was enough for the guy to get up and leave through the archway right next to her without her noticing, while she was distracted. Maybe what she had taken for a deep slouch was actually him in the process of standing up; maybe what she had taken as a slow, static stare was really the man surveying the room as he left.

The cigarette was odd, though; she’d surely smell tobacco smoke in this small space. But maybe it was a vape, or maybe the cigarette wasn’t lit. Maybe he’d just put it to his lips as he made to leave. That was feasible. She could have sworn she’d seen smoke, though, trailing upwards, and then a slow exhalation as he watched her. But maybe that was just conditioning – you expect to see smoke when you see a cigarette; the two go hand in hand, you don’t even need to think about it.

It had been a day of disappearing people. She couldn’t quite shove their contorted faces out of her mind. It didn’t mean anything; she was just tired.

Vincent was coming down the stairs with their jumbo half-and-half pizza on a wooden pallet in one hand, and beer and a small bottle of wine in the other.

‘Did I say it out loud?’ she asked.

‘What?’

‘That I wanted some wine?’

‘Nah, but I felt like a beer, so I took a flyer. Can I get you something else instead?’

He set the food and drinks on the table. He’d chosen a pink wine for her, a brave choice for someone he didn’t know. It was exactly what she wanted.

‘No. This is perfect.’ She cracked open the wine bottle, filled her glass, took a long glug, and refilled with a sigh.