They speak no more as Will waits on the side of the road with her for her grandad to arrive. Twenty minutes pass before a car pulls up with an old guy in a dressing gown behind the wheel.

‘I’m sorry,’ Will says as she walks away.

‘Night,’ she says quietly.

‘I’m so sorry.’

He turns and looks at the house. Someone is bent double, vomiting on the lawn. The party, as energetic as ever, is less inviting to him now. He wanders back in, looking for Alfie.

Party’s Over

‘On the comedown?’ Alfie asks, looking at Will as he approaches.

Will’s footsteps crunch on the pebbles. ‘Nah. Just not in the mood so much.’

‘The comedown,’ Alfie reiterates. He’s sitting on the beach, hidden from the view of the party by the ridge carved out by high tides. Hunched forward, he works a pile of powder with his library card on the back of his phone. ‘See it in your face, cuz.’

‘Been a weird night.’

‘Party and a half, innit?’ Alfie shoves a rolled-up fifty in his left nostril and snorts a thick line that stretches across the entire diagonal of his iPhone. ‘Want one, Parks? Give you a second wind while you tell Uncle Alf all about it?’

‘I’m OK,’ Will says. ‘You won’t believe it, though.’

Alfie looks up. Even in the low light Will can see how crazed his eyes are, how his jaw looks like it’s been drawn on with a set square, how his ears burn beetroot red. ‘Maybe go easy, mate,’ Will says. ‘That is definitely not the dust off the scales!’

‘Been a highly productive night, cuz. These St Anne’s guys know how to spunk an allowance, I’ll give them that. Be able to settle some debts with tonight’s haul.’

‘Not if you vacuum up all the profits.’

‘Yeah, well, not sure you’d find me much fun without it, cuz. I don’t find me much fun without it.’

‘That’s bollocks.’

Alfie waves the discussion away.

‘Where you been all night, anyway?’ Will asks.

‘Just where the business is at.’ Alfie grins. ‘You’re a good wife, Parks – always asking me what I’ve been doing.’

‘Yeah. Sorry.’

‘S’fine,’ Alfie says, putting his arm round Will. ‘Let’s walk. Tell me all about your strange night.’

They stroll together round the gentle curve of the bay, Will relaying to Alfie what he saw in the bedroom. The party provides a thumping soundtrack and a light show into the night sky regardless of how far they walk. Reaching a jetty at the far end of the cove, they stop for a minute. The sea slops against the rocky wall below them. Will reaches for his phone. If he’s going to do it, now’s surely the time.

‘What you doing?’ Alfie asks, fidgety, unable to sit for more than a few seconds at a time.