Will put his arms around her. He was very tall – taller than Callum, taller than her – and Tamsin allowed herself, briefly, to enjoy the feeling of being dwarfed by him. He smelled delicious: some spicy yet subtle aftershave, very expensive, no doubt.

An unfamiliar female voice said, ‘Is everything all right?’ Tamsin pulled back from Will and saw that the speaker was one of the other smokers, a plump girl with auburn hair and a lightly hooked nose. She looked more curious than worried.

‘She’s fine,’ said Will firmly, leading Tamsin off the balcony and back inside. Instead of going downstairs again, though, he pushed open a door on the landing and ushered Tamsin into a small room with two large sofas and an old box television set. He sat her down on the nearest sofa and handed her a big cotton handkerchief.

‘I didn’t know anyone under forty still used these,’ joked Tamsin through her tears.

Will ignored this. ‘I suppose you want to talk about it,’ he said, sitting down next to her. ‘Well, I’m listening.’

Tamsin shook her head. ‘Not really. Not with you.’

‘Good, I hate all that sort of stuff,’ said Will briskly. ‘You know, you’re even prettier when you’re upset.’

Tamsin looked grimly triumphant. ‘I knew it. You’ve got a seriously disturbed lidido, libdido – oh fuck it, you know what I mean. Uh, zit okay if I blow my nose on this?’

Will waved his hand to show that he didn’t mind. ‘Just tell me one thing, who dumped who?’

Tamsin glanced up from the handkerchief. ‘He – actually he doesn’t know I’ve left him.’

‘But you have, definitely, left him?’

Tamsin felt a light pressure low down on her inner thigh, just above her knee: Will’s hand, resting there in a gesture that seemed intentionally ambiguous, halfway between comfort and come-on, wide open to interpretation. Her interpretation. It was up to her, Tamsin realised. Will was the most unscrupulous man she knew; if she wanted to do this awful thing, it was very unlikely that he would stop her. She opened her legs a little further, moving the thigh that he was touching a few inches closer to him. His hand stayed put. Callum had hurt her more than she thought possible; this, surely, was the ultimate way to repay that hurt. Besides, there was no small satisfaction to be had from the idea that she could sleep with the very man Serena was after. Tamsin closed her eyes, trying to think. Sharp fragments of her extraordinary day – Antonia, Chris, the little boy outside Denham Hall, her parents – made themselves painfully felt. She opened her eyes. Thinking was not good. Better not to. Not to think, just to do.

Tamsin put the handkerchief down and turned her body towards Will’s. Their faces were close enough for her to smell the whisky on his breath.

‘You’re a very bad friend,’ she whispered.