My body is red with heat and soap. Clean. The water has somehow woken it so that to look at it, it seems bound with energy. But my head remains muddy. Back in my room Seb has righted the upturned bed and laid out some fresh clothes. I pull on the chinos and checked shirt and get into bed. The cool sheets and warm duvet surprise me with their touch. At this moment it is all I can do to stop heaving as the tears roll down my face.

I see Mum in my dreams and even though I know it isn’t and it can’t be, it feels like an omen. She is young, as she was when I was ten or eleven. She’s perhaps thirty, her skin is wrinkle-free and her eyes shine. She is standing at the foot of my bed and smiling. Her hand is out as if she is begging for alms or food. Or absolution. There’s a shawl that she has never worn over her head. I’m hungry, she says and as I reach out to take her hand, she vanishes. In a blaze of sunlight.

My eyes are open. The angle of the sun says that I have missed most of the morning. I go downstairs feeling groggy. There is coffee on the table. Seb is there, wearing a navy wool suit and a cornflower tie. He smells clean. His hair has been combed smartly into place. A pink square of silk peeps out from his top pocket. I sit and pour out some coffee and take a deep draught. The caffeine stings my blood.

‘Okay?’ he says.

The sorrow that had infected his voice and manner has gone. I nod and watch as he drinks a mouthful of coffee and then lights a cigarette and hands it to me. I put it to my mouth. It soothes and invigorates me at the same time. I stare at my cup through wisps of smoke and see it beginning to blur. I try to speak but I find my voice has dried out and whatever words I had become lost in a cough. He stands and comes to place a hand on my shoulder.

‘I’m really scared, Seb,’ I say through tears. ‘I think it was me. That I killed her. What if I killed her?’

The weight of his hand speaks for him and it remains until the tears finally end. I think about what I said. It is true. I can’t tell where the edges of my sanity lie any more.

At last he goes back to his chair.

‘If there’s one thing I know about you with certainty,’ he says, ‘it’s that you are not capable of that. You loved her. You did not kill her.’

‘How can you be certain?’ I say. ‘When I can’t?’