‘Wait,’ he said. His face was dark and angry, and his mouth was compressed into a thin line. He looked round swiftly, then guided her into the sheltering angle of a building. As she backed against it, Helen felt crumbling mortar and little cushions of moss beneath her fingers.

‘You look terrible,’ Tom told her. ‘Don’t go and … just don’t be stupid, okay? I saw it too. We were both spying, and we saw what we deserved to see. Finish. Forget it now.’

Helen struggled to focus on what he was saying. What was he doing, intruding into this?

‘I’m not stupid,’ she told him mechanically. Then the thought struck her that he must feel for Pansy as she did for Oliver. Of course Tom loved her. Even this detached, accomplished man was vulnerable to her. He must be stinging from what they had just seen as much as she was herself.

For a moment sympathy flickered in her, drawing her to Tom in spite of herself. He didn’t look angry any more. His eyes were hooded and unfathomable in the fading light, but his face had relaxed and there was even a twist of wry amusement around his mouth. He must already be thinking that their mutual exclusion was funny, Helen saw. How cool he was. Yet he was generous enough to look out for her too. Tom Hart could be a valuable friend, she remembered. And she felt that she needed one now more than she had done in all her life. He stood between her and the bleak street, like a refuge.

Then she stiffened. Tom was no refuge. His sympathy and understanding, however real, was useless to her because of his love for Pansy. That made him hers, just like Oliver. That in itself divided him from Helen like a curtain of steel.

Behind her eyes she saw the scene in the warehouse again, with Pansy’s pliant body bent like a bow against Oliver’s.

No-one could help exorcise that. All she wanted was to be alone, as far away from here as possible.

‘Come home with me,’ Tom said gently. ‘We’ll do something English, like have a cup of tea. Then perhaps we’ll follow it up with a lot of bourbon. All this is quite funny, when you come to think of it.’

Helen shook her head. His amusement, and even his kindness, suddenly grated unbearably. She gathered her strength to push past him, staring deliberately over his shoulder.

‘I’d rather be by myself. I don’t want any tea, or any bourbon.’

The sob rising in her throat made her voice sound harsher than she had intended. Tom stood back at once to let her go and she stumbled away.

His half-smile had vanished. When she had gone he picked up a pebble and threw it sharply against the angle of the wall. It clattered dismally and then rolled away into a bed of sodden leaves.