The sound of liquid being poured brings Ben to a stop. The sound of a heavy flask being placed back on a wooden table and a cup being lifted with the gentle noise of a sip being taken. A sense of foreboding, of something happening that wasn’t expected. Ben turns round to see Harry standing with his back to him at the main table. Static charge fills the air. Ominous and heavy.

‘We going?’ Ben asks.

‘Minute,’ Harry says without turning. ‘Nice coffee this.’

‘Safa said—’

‘Safa isn’t here. I am.’ That dangerously low tone that Ben recognises from the day they had the fight in here.

‘What?’ Ben asks, blunt and uncaring. He wants to go. Get this finished. End it. Harry doesn’t answer but sips again from the cup that’s hidden from Ben’s view by his broad back and wide shoulders. Ben sighs. An exhalation of air into the otherwise silent room. His feet shuffle on the bare concrete. Harry sips from the coffee. Ben sags and does not care, then an instant later he feels an absurd flush of anger at being delayed, an instant after that and the energy ebbs away, leaving him uncaring and unbothered again. Ben frowns and tries to grasp at least one coherent thought but everything in his head is jumbled up.

‘Safa said I should try and talk you out of it.’

Ben looks up and blinks as Harry turns to face him with the coffee cup looking tiny in his massive hands, and in that surreal second Ben wonders why he’s holding it in a double-handed grip.

‘Don’t bother,’ Ben mumbles. ‘We going then?’

‘Said it might be better coming from me,’ Harry continues.

Ben shrugs and stares back. Eyes locked. Harry sips. Ben stares. Harry lowers the mug from his mouth.

‘Are we going?’ Ben asks as that anger starts seeping back in at the way Harry is giving him the evil eye because Harry perceives him as weak and a coward and because he’s let Safa carry him and not done his part. Fuck Harry. Fuck his values and his sense of right and wrong. Ben is done. Ben wants it finished.

Still Harry stares. Unblinking and expressionless, but within that passivity there is a whole bunch of meaning telegraphed. Harry sips again in an act designed to show he is taking his time, which reflects just how poorly he thinks of Ben.

Ben takes a step towards him. ‘Are we going?’

Still Harry sips and stares. Ben feels stupid and angry and confused and sad all at the same time. He feels lost and forlorn and full of hatred for everything and within that maelstrom of emotion he also feels hurt at this last show of power from Harry.