‘I wish I could tell you more about that night,’ she said, quietly. ‘I know you must want to know.’

His eyes focused on her, slowly. ‘Did you meet him at the bar?’ he asked. ‘Or was it before that?’

Louise shook her head. ‘I didn’t know him. I only remember speaking to him briefly. I can’t remember anything else at all.’

‘Do you remember talking to me?’ he asked.

She shook her head again. ‘Were you there?’

‘On the phone,’ he said, and she detected anger in his voice. ‘You must remember. I tried to call him, and you answered instead.’

Louise could feel her forehead creasing with anxiety. It threatened to bring back the headache that had only recently abated after two whole days.

‘I don’t remember that,’ she said, and then, suddenly badly needing to know, ‘What did I say?’

Alex’s husband’s mouth pursed in distaste. ‘Nothing that can help me. That it was Alex’s phone, but he was tied up right now. And then he got it off you and apologised. You sounded drunk. He did, too.’

Louise felt a swelling of shame. She could imagine Drunk Louise doing that. Drunk Louise always wanted to have fun, no matter who it hurt.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘I don’t think I was myself on Friday. I was … upset. And I got really drunk.’

But Alex’s husband seemed not to be listening to her. He was looking at her belongings again, his brow wrinkling in what looked like frustration. Perhaps confusion.

‘I expected you to be … richer,’ he said.

Louise almost laughed. ‘Richer?’

‘That’s what he liked,’ he said, his gaze flicking to her and then away. ‘The rich country girls. The ones his dad would have loved.’

‘Look,’ Louise said, feeling an increasing sense of unease, ‘I don’t know … I don’t think that’s what happened. I don’t think he was chasing me.’

But then she listened to herself and thought of the man who had pursued her in her dream. Of the pain in her back and the dirt in her mouth. And she felt ill.

‘Any kids?’ he asked.

And Louise shook her head, and said, ‘No,’ wondering why he would ask that. ‘Sorry, I … what’s your name?’

‘Issa,’ he said, his voice quiet. Slightly child-like. And then he suddenly asked, ‘What is it you have?’

‘I don’t … understand,’ Louise said. He was staring at her as though she had personally betrayed him and it made her feel that she must have done it somehow. Must have been a traitor.

Alex’s husband continued, his voice low with hatred. ‘What is it you have that made him want to risk everything? Just so he could fuck you?’

‘I don’t … I don’t have anything.’