‘Jack’s driving licence still has our house as his permanent address,’ John tells me. ‘I was home today when the police came to inform us. He was killed on the scene.’

This can’t be true. We’re going to a comedy night.

‘I’m here to find Jack’s phone,’ John continues. ‘His work, his friends need to – erm – know.’

‘I was hoping for a Kinder Bueno,’ I think, perhaps aloud.

‘Sorry?’

‘Or a Magnum. Perfect weather for a Magnum.’

I stare at my phone, at the last communication I’ll ever receive from Jack; except it’s interrupted with another message from my mum, followed by another photo.

Chloe look! Cushion covers to match the wicker basket. Aren’t they lovely?

My phone slips out of my hand and crashes to the floor. John’s arms envelop my bare shoulders and I freeze, allowing this stranger’s embrace to hold me together so I don’t crack. I’m completely naked beneath this towel and I can hear Jack’s king-size laugh bouncing off these basement walls at the sight of his dad and his girlfriend being pelted head-first into a top-notch awkward moment.

Except I can’t hear Jack’s laugh, can I?

2

I arrive at Beth’s in a taxi.

It would’ve been much quicker to get to Islington on the Overground from Brockley, but that’s far too much normality to follow the news I’ve been hit with. John has stayed behind in the flat, waiting for Trish. They want to spend the night there together, because apparently Trish doesn’t like the idea of Jack’s flat being left abandoned. I did remind John that I would be there – you know, because I live there – to which he said, ‘Ah, that’s right’. By the time I’d replaced the towel around my body with actual clothes, he told me that Trish was arriving in about twenty minutes. If that wasn’t a cue to leave – well.

‘Oh, go fuck yourself!’ I overhear Beth scream.

I’m on the front step of her mid-terrace house, thirty quid down thanks to the rush hour surge, my finger hovering over the doorbell. We’ve known each other since high school and despite her living in London for the past decade, Beth hasn’t lost a smidgeon of her Liverpool twang. A door inside slams and the front door swings open.

‘Chloe?! Didn’t know you were coming.’

Beth’s husband Fergus is holding a large bin bag, bulging to match his muscles. Last month, when we went out for Beth’s birthday, Jack described Fergus to me as Garfield on steroids. He had a point.

‘Chloe?’ Fergus asks again. ‘You okay?’

I look to his grumpy face as he waits impatiently to lob the rubbish into the plastic bin beside me. I manage some sort of polite closed-mouth smile, confusing him further, and he sidles past to complete his chore.