Nory let herself in and began to climb the stairs. The carpet was worn, but the walls were painted sage green and Etienne and Ross—art lecturers at UCL—had painted trailing flowers and climbing wisteria in the hallway. Nory lived on the fifth floor and there was no lift, but she didn’t mind; working so close to home, sometimes these stairs were the only exercise she got. She passed several doors on the semi landings as she climbed. She liked hearing the sounds and soaking in the smells of the lives happening behind the doors; always meaty smells and soap operas from the Greek couple in flat 7, the starchy scent of boiling rice and the sound of classical music from Anna and her Russian girlfriend in flat 10. Farther up the building, Kia, the newest addition to Neela and Jonas’s brood, was making herself heard above the saccharine soundtrack of Disney tunes.

Nory turned the key in the lock and pushed open the door to find Mugwort waiting for her. No one could describe Mugwort as a looker, but that was what had attracted her to him in the rescue center; she had always been a sucker for an underdog, or in this case, undercat. Mugwort followed her into the kitchen, which saw far less cooking than she would ever admit to her mum. She fed Mugwort and slid her lasagna out of its foil dish onto a plate, then, emptying the last of a bottle of red into a wineglass, she settled onto the sofa and switched on the TV. This was her nightly routine. Later she would attempt some bookkeeping—which Andrew would correct tomorrow—and then she would scour the online auction houses for estate content sales and check to see if any of her house clearance contacts had any new book acquisitions.

In the last two years, she hadn’t dated anyone for longer than three months. She wasn’t sure if she had changed or if the men on the dating apps had changed, but lately she hadn’t been clicking with anyone. She was supposed to be in her flirty thirties, but all the guys her age and older seemed to be wanting someone younger and she was finding precious little opportunity to do any flirting at all. Why were all the thirty-five-to-forty-year-old professional men wanting to date twenty-two-year-olds straight out of university? She was a catch, a dammed fine catch! She had her own business; staff (one member, but it still counted); a studio flat in central London; she was well-read, intelligent, curvy, reasonably attractive, a non-smoker (except after three shots of Sambuca), and she liked sex—not only that, but she was rather good at it too. How was that not getting her all the likes?

Her mobile rang.

“Hi, Mum.”

“Hello, love, what are you up to?”

“Eating dinner and watching TV.”

“That’s nice. What are you having?”

“Lasagna.”

“Homemade?”

“Mmhmm.”