When she saw Max standing there, she was astonished. Usually he came discreetly, slipping into the house when no-one was there to see him, tapping gently on the door so that he would not be heard by the other tenants. By the time she had got to the door, he was banging it with his fist and shouting.

“Mary Raven, let me in!”

She saw immediately that he had been drinking, and that surprised her, too. Usually, when they went out, he drank little and then he ordered what she considered women’s wimpish drinks: white wine and small glasses of lager. Now he was loudly and incoherently drunk. She let him in, glad to have the opportunity of looking after him, and switched on the fire because he seemed very cold. Then she made coffee for him. When she returned from the kitchen, she found him weeping. There was more wrong with him than just the drink, she thought. She, after all, was an expert in these things.

“Max,” she said. “ What’s the matter?”

She sat on his lap and put her arms around his neck, thinking that she might distract him from his misery with sex. But he seemed only to want her for comfort and clung to her, his head against her shoulder still crying. At any other time she might have tried to laugh him out of it, but he seemed quite distraught and she began to be frightened.

“Max,” she said. “ What have you done?”

But that seemed only to distress him more.

“I’ll find somewhere else to go,” he said. “ You don’t want me here.”

“Don’t be silly,” she said. “Of course I want you. I always want you. Why don’t you spend the night here? You can’t go back to your wife like this.”

She took his hand as if he were a big and backward child and took him to the bedroom. There she undressed him gently, wishing he was more himself so that he could appreciate the care she was taking of him. She sat him in a chair while she made the bed, smoothing biscuit crumbs from the sheets onto the carpet, shaking pillows so that he would be comfortable. Then she kissed him gently and left him to steep.

In the morning, she thought, when he’s sober, we’ll talk about this and make love slowly. And at least when he was in trouble he came to me and not to his wife.

She made more coffee for herself and sat in front of the gas fire to drink it, satisfied because Max was under her roof again.

She was still there when Hunter arrived to invite her to the police station for a few questions.