Mel started making a lime and coriander butter. I poured us both a drink and told her what had happened. While I talked I cut the ends off the sappy tulip stalks and stood the stems upright in a glass jug. The orange-red petals were frilled with bright pistachio green. The daub of colour in the underlit room reminded me of Lola’s jersey at the cremation.

‘I’m worried. Really worried,’ I concluded. ‘I never get to the root of anything with Jack. He clams up or walks away or shuts himself in his room. I never know what he’s thinking. What must it have been like for him, wandering around with nowhere to go and nothing to do for three days? Did he talk to the old dossers? I wonder how many weirdos tried to come on to him?’

‘Worrying won’t help,’ Mel said.

‘That’s easier said, believe me. You don’t know what it’s like.’

She had been searching a drawer for some implement but now she slammed it shut. ‘Thanks for telling me.’

‘Shit. Christ. Mel, I’m sorry. I’m a thoughtless cow.’ My face and neck throbbed with shamed heat. Mel didn’t talk about it much any more, but her childlessness was still a wound.

‘Where’s your sharp knife? Oh, it’s all right. I only want to trim the fish.’

‘Sorry,’ I murmured again. ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with me.’

Mel put the knife down. She came round the worktop and wound her arms round me and I rested my head against hers. The touch was comforting.

‘I think he’ll be all right, Sadie. I’ve got no grounds for saying so, but I still think it. Trust me, I’m a City headhunter.’ It was one of the things she often said, to make me smile.

‘I do trust you. In spite of your utterly high-powered, bewilderingly incomprehensible job.’

‘Good. Remember what Lola was like when we first met?’

‘How could I forget?’

‘Right, then.’ She let go of me. ‘Now, do the veg for me, please.’

I did as I was told, dropping the little peas and fingernail-sized beans into the steamer. ‘Let’s talk about something else,’ I suggested.

‘How about me?’

‘Perfect.’

Mel shimmied the length of the worktop, rapping the knife point on jars and pans. ‘I met someone.’

‘No.’ This wasn’t exactly an infrequent occurrence. I already knew that Adrian’s days were numbered.

She stopped dancing and held up her hand. I had been so preoccupied that it was only now I noticed that her face was as bright as a star. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I really have met someone.’