Callum was surprised but pleased. Then he was worried, in case this meant that Tamsin wanted to have sex tonight. While Tamsin showered he sat on the edge of her bed, fully dressed, with one hand rubbing at his crotch in order to give himself a head start, careful not to let his mind go anywhere it shouldn’t, thinking exclusively of Tamsin’s big, womanly tits.

That was when he saw it: on the windowsill, arranged in three tidy stacks, a large amount of small change. At first he couldn’t work out why this was so disturbing. But women never had that much change. They had purses – he could see Tamsin’s purse now, poking out the corner of her open handbag – and so they spent their change. Whereas men just carried on filling up their pockets until it was time to undress. Then they emptied those pockets and – in some cases – stacked the coins, just like this, into neat little cylinders. Callum tried to tell himself he was being paranoid, for the second time that day. Why shouldn’t Tamsin have a lot of spare change on her windowsill? Those columns, though: they were somehow peculiarly male. And Chris had been here at the weekend. Yet he could hardly accuse Tamsin of having an affair on the basis of a pile of coins.

The shower was turned off. Callum darted forward and took Tamsin’s purse from her handbag. He popped open the coin pocket: two pennies and a five-pence piece.

‘Tam,’ he called. ‘You got any spare change? I meant to pick up a copy of The Times on my way here, there’s this thing in it by Pete, you know, my friend Pete Danneman?’

‘Try my purse, should be some in there,’ came the reply.

Callum left a short pause before answering. ‘Nope, not enough.’

‘Well, that’s it, that’s all I’ve got.’

‘No change anywhere else in your bedroom?’

‘God, Callum, I don’t know, try the pot on the dresser?’