His hands rose to his mouth of their own accord. ‘No,’ he said again.

‘She killed herself.’ Teena’s face sagged in disbelief, but as soon as she’d said the words Sebastian understood. As horrible as it was, he was all too able to believe it. He thought of how Zoe had seemed when he’d seen her the day before. He thought of the signs he’d missed or wilfully misread. Her restless gaze and mood. Her weird, fizzy charisma.

And then Teena, staring, told him, ‘She did it at the cliffs.’

Over the next couple of days, they learned more about what had happened. A work crew had spotted her body at the bottom of a hundred-metre drop, not far from the hut. Emergency services came out in a light aircraft, took several attempts to land on a rocky ledge, and at last retrieved her body. Her family would later be told that it would be best to identify her from her dental records, a coded way of saying it would be better not to look at her remains. She was found an unusual distance from the base of the cliff: other rock-climber friends said she must have taken a running jump.

Sebastian tried to picture her doing this; he was struck by her resolve. She hadn’t stood at the edge looking over before she leapt. Perhaps she knew that if she looked down she would lose her nerve. Perhaps she knew this from having made earlier attempts.

They went to the memorial three days later, gathering in a public park near a struggling copse of trees. It was late afternoon; a breeze whipped the leaflets that people held in their hands. These bore a photo of Zoe in camouflage gear, the years of her birth and death, and the words ‘In memoriam’. It was a no-fuss event, which was partly intentional. Jamal, Zoe’s brother, preferred the park to an inside venue, and there wasn’t a sound system. ‘We didn’t want music, anyway,’ he said wearily. ‘Or readings or poems. We would rather let folks say a few words about Zoe.’

Sebastian stood at Teena’s side but she refused to hold his hand. She was brittle and withdrawn, her mouth a thin, firm line. Someone had propped up a framed photo on a folding card table. It showed Zoe smiling in front of some craggy cliffs. Seeing it, Sebastian said, appalled, ‘They’ve got to be joking. A photo of the cliffs?’

‘No one’s joking,’ said Teena crossly. ‘She really loved climbing.’