The office is nothing special. She expected it to be more. But it’s just another desk with a computer Titch is staring into. With glasses on. Rose hasn’t seen her in glasses before. Titch takes them off when she sees Rose.

‘Good day?’ she says, brightly.

Rose nods.

‘I have to stay late, I’m afraid. If you head back, I’ll be there by nine.’

Rose doesn’t move.

‘Maybe you could look in a few of the shops round Covent Garden before taking the Tube.’ Her smile fades a little. ‘You’re OK on the Tube, aren’t you?’

Rose nods. She smiles hesitantly. ‘Bye,’ she says, then turns to go.

The street outside is busier even than in the morning. It’s Tuesday, but people are sitting outside cafés and pubs and restaurants. The day is still sunny, and the warmth sits comfortably on the street, filling all corners. At home the lick of wind is never far away, and every shadow hides a cool shiver.

I am OK, Rose thinks.

She’s been places on her own before. More than most. But sometimes, sitting with Graeme, and Mrs Jackson, and Caz, it’s also seemed like she’s weaker than most. When they speak, they talk over her. She doesn’t say anything. When they met to discuss her coming to London, she barely spoke three words.

‘If she was my daughter, I’d absolutely let her do this.’

‘But she’s not, Graeme.’

They said things. Rose listened. Sometimes they asked her questions and she shrugged, nodded. Shook her head.

‘I’ll be OK,’ she said.

She walks down the street towards the Tube station. She has an Oyster card for the Tube, but she also has some money. Fifty pounds. Titch is giving her breakfast and dinner for the four nights she’s here, and letting her make sandwiches for her lunch. She doesn’t know what the fifty pounds is for.

She walks slowly past the shops, drawing the time out before she has to get on the Underground. She looks at the clothes in the windows. The displays are like the adverts in Vogue that she used to leaf through, filled with mannequins who wear clothes that fall just right over their limbs, that drape and slide and swoosh and fit. She never would have thought real people could be like that, but the streets here are full of them.

But not everyone. She spots people like her too. People in jeans and T-shirts, people who are a bit too fat, or whose knees bend inwards, or who walk like they’re apologising.

A deep, rich scent of coffee wafts past. A laugh, a blast of perfume.