‘Uh-huh,’ she says. ‘Well … You’ve been in the papers a lot, you see, and they said you were filming in Germany. When I googled it, there was a fan site that speculated on what locations you might use – is it adapted from a book? Some websites used clues from a book? And you don’t answer the phone when I call anymore, and I know why that is. I know I haven’t been a very good mum to you, pet, I do. But I’m in AA. I’m almost three hundred days sober. And I’ve come to say sorry. I used the money you sent. I don’t normally spend it – everything you send is in an account, ready to pay you back. I don’t need your money, not anymore. Everything is different now.’

Duke nods. He’s played this conversation in his head thousands of times: the fantasy of hearing I’m sorry. Except, in his imagination he leaps up, at this point, and they hug and say they’ll never fall out again, and his mum swears she’ll be everything she should already have been, and Duke says yes, okay, he’d like that very much. But here, confronted with the reality of it, he doesn’t feel like saying any of those things. He doesn’t feel like saying anything at all.

‘Where are you staying?’ he asks her, and she fishes out the card to a three-star hotel a few miles away. ‘Here,’ she says, handing it to him. ‘This is us.’

Duke nods.

‘Do you know your room number?’

‘Two-twelve.’

He nods again. ‘I’ll call you tomorrow,’ he says. ‘In the morning. About 8 a.m., okay? I have to go to bed now.’

His mother stands up as he does, and Duke sees Roger approaching and gives a little wave.

‘Nice to meet you,’ Duke says, and he goes up to his room. He gets his phone out of his pocket, and then puts it back again. He’s not sure if he wants to talk about his mother being here, making it real, or to go to bed and close his eyes and pretend it’s not happening. The hotel phone on his bedside table rings.

‘Hey.’

It’s her. Evie.

‘Can you come up?’ he asks her.

It takes her less than three minutes. He opens the door to her and she looks at him, and it isn’t pity, he doesn’t think, like she feels sorry for him. It’s real, proper concern.