She got off the bus as it rounded past some of the older parts of the city. Everything here was being redeveloped; if it didn’t have a destruction order on it, it usually had a blue plaque. This was old Dublin, home to the great revolutionaries, the playwrights and perhaps less likely to be celebrated but also some of Dublin’s more notorious criminals. It was still a bit of a walk to the block, but the rain had stopped and it was pleasant here, with the smell of fresh coffee filling the air from the many couture coffee shops, the sound of the river lapping gently nearby and the city slowing down in the distance. It was actually quite soothing to be taking a walk after work. She turned left into Pete’s building, stabbed in his security code – they both used the same one on everything as a default: Rachel’s lucky number. She punched in fourteen three times and smiled. They’d often joked that if they wanted to rob each other, it would be too easy – in so many ways, there were no secrets between them.

She rode up the elevator. Pete’s apartment was top of the house. He had direct access to the roof garden and she remembered now, they’d planned on having some summer evenings there, although they’d never quite happened. It seemed that getting together a foursome was always just too difficult to manage. She wondered now how much of their lives had been engineered around Anya and Eddie keeping their affair going on without them being any the wiser.

Out of courtesy, more than necessity, she rang his front doorbell. Again, the code was easy, fourteen – fourteen. Inside she heard high heels tap their way along the parquet flooring to the door. Liv stood back for a moment. She hadn’t expected Pete to have company, and she felt a little foolish. Why on earth wouldn’t he? Hadn’t she gone out to dinner with Finn O’Connell? What was to stop Pete asking someone out on a date? Had she expected Anya to open the door?

‘Oh, it’s you,’ Anya said, momentarily as thrown by Liv’s appearance as Liv was by hers.

‘Yes, I’m looking for Pete.’

‘Well, obviously. I didn’t think you were here to cosy up to me.’ Then she stood back, taking in everything about Liv, assessing with the eyes of someone who could see far more than Liv wanted her to.

‘Anyway, hasn’t he told you?’

‘Told me what?’ Liv said. She didn’t like standing here like an uninvited – or perhaps unwanted – guest.