The ground is comforting underfoot. I need something firm and permanent as everything else around me seems to be washing away. I try to gather my scattered thoughts as I walk. The last thing I remember is Nina. The things she said. As I remember them again my pulse begins to quicken. All you ever loved was a version of her that you had created.

There was hate or something like it – spite, maybe – in her voice as she said it. This disturbs me most of all. That she would hurt me for no other reason than to inflict pain. But now as I consider her, I can’t quite see her in those colours. Not truly. There was something else in her voice. More than grief. Some other quality. I play through the conversation I now have to have with her. I run it over and over across the roads and the roundabouts, along the wide pavements and congested bridges.

I have to get her to talk.

Seb’s house. The late afternoon light catches it in a way that makes it feel like a memory. I knock on the door. Seb should be at work, I think, but a few seconds later the door opens and he is there. He looks terrible. He is wearing jeans and a blue-checked shirt that looks slept in.

I hold up a hand to stop whatever he might say. ‘I’ve been charged with Grace’s murder,’ I say. ‘They kept me overnight. I’ve just come from court. And I have to stay here. Court bail. I’m sorry. Really sorry, Seb.’

His face runs pale.

‘You’ve been charged? But how?’ he says, plainly shocked.

‘They think I killed her, Seb.’ Without warning, my eyes begin to redden.

‘I’ve been trying to find out what happened to you all night, but those guys, the police, they can be real arseholes,’ he says, and then holds me in a hug.

He leads me inside and to the kitchen. For a second, we look at one another saying nothing. Suddenly I feel exhausted and dirty. I fight the idea of a bath but I need one, my skin is itching hot in place. There’s a part of me that thinks of this dirt on my skin as an amulet. Had it protected me until I had my first bath in years, just upstairs? There’s so much I want to say, but my social skills, always uncertain, feel blown after a night in the cells.

‘Come,’ Seb says. ‘I’ve got coffee brewed.’

‘Look, if it’s okay I’d just as soon go upstairs and—’ I begin but he places a cup in my hand and sits.

‘They charged you with the murder?’ he says again.

I nod, gulping the strong coffee.

‘What did you tell them?’

‘Not much. I went mainly “no comment”.’

‘But you told them you didn’t do it?’ he says, looking into my eyes.