There was no evidence that the blood was hers. No bloom of it to show a source. Just a great river of it down her T-shirt, and daubs of it over her hands. Jonah tried, swiftly, to work out whether she was in trouble. Whether she’d just witnessed a terrible accident.

She was young, he thought. A teenager. And she came to a complete stop a few paces into the garden, as if she’d run out of the momentum needed to keep going.

There was no question in Jonah’s mind that he should be the one to step forwards. The moment this young woman had entered the garden, she had become his responsibility. Before that, really. From the moment the blood had been shed on her.

She gazed around at the drinkers with a strangely unconcerned expression. There was no shame. No anxiety. But also none of the signs Jonah had come to expect from a girl who had experienced trauma. None of the usual ones, at least. She looked, if anything, slightly amused.

He got to his feet and took a step forwards, his hand going to the handle of the pram to keep it near to him.

‘Are you all right?’ he asked her.

There were hurrying footsteps from the pub. In the periphery of his vision, he saw a waitress emerge from the door with a pair of plates, and then falter as she saw the scene in front of her.

The girl smiled at him, though it wasn’t a warm smile. It was almost as if she’d been expecting him to ask, and found it funny.

‘I could do with a drink,’ she said.

Jonah nodded. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Come to the bar and I’ll get you one.’

He felt very much aware, as he escorted her into the pub, that everyone was now watching both of them. That they were now imagining that he knew her. Assuming that this was somehow his fault.

It was lucky that Jonah had never cared that much about what most people thought.

The young woman moved ahead of him into the pub, and he lifted the pram over the threshold and followed her. He became momentarily blind in the dimness before he shoved his sunglasses up onto his head. The girl was already walking towards the bar.

There was, as ever, no real sense of a queue. Just a mass of people near the bar, all immersed in their menus and shooting each other occasional side-eyed glances in case they lost their place. But they made way for him. Or, actually, for her.

‘Lemonade?’ Jonah asked, his eyes on the nearest barman. He could see that the guy had understood. That he was going to serve this blood-smeared girl next, no matter who was waiting.

‘Sure,’ she said. ‘A pint with ice.’