‘Don’t shush me. You’re the one with no volume control. And I’m fed up of this,’ she points to the sheet. ‘Call the landlord and tell him you need a proper door. No, tell him you need sound proofing.’

Emma laughs, then mouths overenthusiastically, ‘I’ve not slept all night.’ Her chest is red and her mascara is smudged making her green eyes look liquidly cold and pale. ‘Seriously, like, seriously,’ she says with the international school twang she’s never quite managed to shake, ‘I love a guy so open to trying new things.’

Yvonne fake gags, ‘Please, stop talking.’

‘Wait till you meet him.’

‘I don’t want to meet him. It’s bad enough I’m talking to you post-sex.’

Emma covers her mouth to stifle a laugh. ‘Why are you going out so early anyway?’

‘I’ve got my final tutorial at eleven. Surely, yours is today as well?’

‘Urgh, for what? So they can tell me how unreadable my last essay was? I know that. Stay home today?’

Yvonne thinks about the cost of truancy, all that student debt she’s racking up to sit on the sofa and watch Diagnosis Murder. ‘Nope. I’m going in.’

Emma frowns, ‘Well, he’s going to work so I should, like, drag myself in as well. Wait for me.’

‘No. You’ll make me late.’

‘I’ll be quick. Talk me up to him,’ she whispers.

‘No. I’m leaving.’

But Emma’s already halfway up the stairs pulling off her towel, ‘You know me, three minutes and I’m done.’

Three minutes to shower followed by an hour pottering about the house. Yvonne steps outside and closes the front door. There’s a car parked on their usually empty drive, a Volvo Estate, not the kind of car a young guy would drive. A crucifix on a purple beaded chain hangs from the rear-view mirror. Surely it’s his parents’ car, she thinks as she walks towards the bus stop at the end of the road. But then, stops, she’s left her rucksack. She runs back to the house and looks in the hall, but it’s not there. A tap is running in the kitchen, and as she goes in she sees him there by the sink, bare back and a pair of black jeans.

She averts her eyes and grabs the bag from the floor.

‘Morning,’ he says brightly.

‘Morning.’

‘I know you,’ he says.

She looks up. He leans against the kitchen counter and narrows his eyes at her.

It can’t be.

‘No way,’ he says loudly.

It can’t be. There are over eight million people in London. How is it him? The odds are impossible, they have to be.