‘You’re back at your mum’s?’

He drives on for a moment in silence and then looks at her. ‘She needed a bit more help at home.’

‘No, I didn’t mean it like that. I wasn’t judging you.’

‘All my brothers are married and have their own families. So it falls on me, as the youngest, to drive her back and forth to hospital, to check up on her.’

‘It must be a lot to deal with. I’m sorry to hear that.’ She recalls Kiama making a Get Well Soon card for his nana recently. ‘Is it her sickle cell?’

‘Yeah, she’s had some bad episodes recently. Danny wants her to move in with him and his wife, but they fuss over her too much. When I’m home I can keep an eye on her and she still feels needed because I’ll never get too old for feeding and lecturing,’ he laughs. ‘Kiama too, she loves having him over.’

‘You’re a good son, Lewis.’ She can do this, she can sit in his car and be civil with him. ‘And how’s your business going?’

He casts a quick glance at her, ‘You mean the restaurant?’

‘You’re setting up a restaurant?’

‘You really don’t know anything about me, do you?’

‘Why would I? You think Emma and I sit around talking about you?’

He laughs. ‘No. But I assumed you would have asked, over the years.’

She remains silent.

‘Guess not. I sell gym memberships, but could do it in my sleep. Danny wants to open a restaurant and I’m going to back it, so looking at premises right now, around Wembley. That’s what we were talking about tonight actually. I wasn’t even meant to meet up with him. I had other plans that got cancelled last minute. Weird, isn’t it? That’s my first time in that pub.’

She knows what he’s getting at. ‘It’s a coincidence.’

‘You and I, we have a lot of coincidences,’ he looks at her again.

‘Doesn’t mean anything. I bump into people all the time, especially around Soho.’

Will she mention this to Emma? Send a text saying ‘guess who I bumped into?’ No, that would feel too much like walking into trouble. But why? There’s no issue here. She’s doing absolutely nothing wrong. She’ll even tell Jaden, that an old friend dropped her home. Again, there’s nothing wrong with any of this.

They drive onto Tower Bridge and he grunts, ‘Can’t believe I’m on the wrong side of the river. I’m starting to feel light-headed.’

She should have got a cab. This was silly, allowing him to drive all the way out here. ‘You know what, Lewis? It’s too far, drop me around here, I can get a bus straight to the end of my road.’