“Megaaaannnn! Hellooo!” Hannah’s voice screeches from the phone. “Earth to Megan.”

“Sorry, Hannah. I was miles away.” I snap my attention away from Tom.

“Err… you called me, sweetheart. Everything OK?” There is an edge of concern and a corner of barely concealed dread.

“Sure. Of course. Sorry, was flicking through the post. Just got home from a week up in town.” Hannah got very drunk last year and confessed that she worried about me. The way I seemed sometimes to space out, to forget things. That was when I’d started to document things better. Jesus, I’m going to need to be extra meticulous to pull this Leah thing off and convince Hannah that everything is OK. “I need to ask you a favor.”

“Sure thing, Megs.”

“I’m trying to find someone who could rehome a cat. Do you think your mum would—”

“Yes. She’s dying to get her hands on another waif and stray, driving my dad bananas! When from?”

“As soon as possible.”

“Let me text her now, stay on the phone.” I can hear Hannah humming in the background as she types the message. “There, sent. You doing Friday date night?”

“Yep.”

“Harriers at six thirty?”

“Now you’re talking.”

“Cool. Oh, Mum says just pop round with the puss any time.”

“Thanks, Hans.”

Just as Chris and I had established date night for Friday evenings to make sure we saw each other at least once every two weeks, so too had Hannah and I established meeting for an hour and a half first.

I am a few minutes late pushing open the door to the small pub we always meet in; I’d managed to bang my little toe on that stupid chest Chris insists on using as a coffee table just after I got off the phone. I don’t think it’s broken or anything, but it hurt like hell and left me hopping around the room cursing my husband’s taste in interior design. The pub is warm, steam clouding the windows. She is sat in the tiny area between the door and the bar, two miniature armchairs squished into the space with a squat table holding a flickering votive like a sad little vigil. “In memory of Dave.” Hannah motions to the candle. Dave was the most recent in a very long string of unsuitable boyfriends. They had been dating a few weeks.

“What did he do?” I wait for the ridiculous thing poor Dave had done to get the chop. The last one—Dan, I think—had farted on date four. Jacob had lasted two dates before he confessed to hating cats. Pete had asked her on date three to provide a certificate of her fertility, so he knew he wasn’t “wasting his time.” To be fair, I was glad she had got rid of him.

“Well…” She pushes a large glass of wine toward me and slugs down some of her own. She takes a deep breath, but then, rather than launching into her story, she cocks her head and frowns.