‘I can’t – sorry, but this isn’t going in right.’ I stood, then sat again heavily. ‘So who the hell was she then?’

Liam looked at me very directly for the first time since I had arrived. ‘You’re going to find out anyway, I guess.’ He submerged the leaves in boiling water.

‘Find out what?’

‘She was—’ He stopped.

‘Go on, please, Liam.’

‘She was one of James’s girls.’

‘One of his—’

‘One of his girls. That’s right.’

‘You mean, like a girlfriend?’ I was surprised at how calm I felt.

‘No, I don’t mean like a girlfriend. I mean, like a—’

We stared at each other; this man whom I had been friends with since James and I met up again; since before my marriage. Something else in my life I knew nothing of. My life was apparently a house of cards that couldn’t withstand the pressure of the gentlest breeze, let alone the gale that was now blowing.

‘You mean – like a – an escort?’

‘If you like.’

‘An escort like a – a whore?’ I whispered.

‘Yes, Rose. I’m really sorry, lovey. I mean, like a whore.’

Chapter Twenty-Five

After leaving Liam’s flat, I got the tube to Pentonville Prison. I felt anxious and strung out, thoroughly overwrought.

All this time I had longed for the city, but here and now, amidst the fumes and grime, the drab grey uniformity of the architecture, the boarded-up shops and smelly kebab houses, I found myself craving fresh air and space, just to be. Ruefully I shook my head. Why is the grass always greener?

At the entrance to Old Street tube I passed a girl on a mobile phone, speaking a language I couldn’t place – Polish, possibly. She looked tired and cross, her long hair tied back, a waif-like body, slanted eyes, smoking furiously, jabbering into her phone.

‘You will be sorry,’ she said suddenly in English to the person on the phone, and something in her face made me pause. I imagined Katya twisting through the air; I heard the—

I closed my eyes and hurried down into London’s bowels.

On the tube I studied the women in my carriage: ordinary women reading papers, fiddling with iPods, napping, eyes shut against the world. How did they make their living? Did they spend their days cleaning, filing, striking million-dollar deals or selling their own bodies? How did we ever know what lay beneath someone else’s surface, unless they wanted to share it? Suddenly I felt overwhelmed by life, by the fact that everything I’d counted on was being dragged slowly and relentlessly from beneath my feet.