When I hobbled away, my attackers were on the ground, broken and bloody. It had taken just a few seconds and when it was done I hurried away. My shoulder was throbbing. My face was pouring with blood. The back of my head felt as if it might have cracked. The dull sick feeling still clung from when my head had hit the platform.

But if you were to ask me what I did for the rest of the day, I couldn’t say. I can’t tell you what happened for the rest of the year. Or where the year lay in relation to the others. Looking back now, I cannot place very much into any certain time-frame. I think you need people to do that. People are a frame of reference, letting you plot where you are and where you are heading. And to remind you, in words, what each of you did. I didn’t have people. I could have, but I never craved it the way that some of the other people I crossed on the street did.

I blink to see Seb staring at me in concern.

‘They’re saying they know who she is,’ I say, collecting myself.

He leans forward, lacing his fingers together.

I take a deep breath. ‘They’re saying it’s Grace. That she’s dead.’

He takes a gulp from his glass. I am expecting a tirade, anger. Something. He opens his mouth as if to say something and then closes it. Finally, he decides what to say and speaks.

‘Grace? Our Grace. That’s who it was?’

‘Yes. They’re saying it was her. They’re saying that she’s dead.’

He runs a hand through his hair.

‘They think she was murdered? Not an accident?’ he says. ‘And they’re saying it was you?’

It takes a moment for the realisation to hit.

‘Seb. You don’t sound surprised that she’s dead.’

‘I know,’ he says simply.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I knew she was dead.’

Hearing this makes the room reverberate. ‘What do you mean, you knew she was dead?’

I am standing now and see that I have picked up my glass and I am holding it as if I am about to launch it at him. I am watching myself but don’t seem to be able to control what I’m doing.

Seb remains rooted. ‘We all knew she was dead, Xander.’

I hear the words but they are so disembodied that it takes time for them to register.

‘And you didn’t think to tell me about it?’ A rage rises from somewhere I cannot identify. As it rises it drags a red veil across my eyes.

‘Sit down, Xander,’ Seb says to me. His tone is even, as if he is used to this from me.

‘No! I will not sit down. Did you? Were you there, Seb?’

‘Sit down,’ he says again.