She wanders round the flat, opens one of the sash windows. There was a brief downpour, but now the rain has stopped and the city glitters below her. She climbs out and perches on the stone lintel: she used to sit here, dreaming of life with Matt, her bare toes on the edge, the vertiginous drop below. How she used to love this view: the slow loop of the river, the city centre trapped in its coil, the Suspension Bridge slung across the raw red cliffs and the mud banks below, Leigh Woods and the green hills of Somerset. It’s as if she can map out her whole life from here: the fields and orchards where she grew up, the university her father taught in, the bar where she met Matt, the terraced house that’s Chloe’s home, the hospital where she gave birth to her children; and, out by the disused railway path on the way to Bath, the cemetery where they buried Ruby-May.

She’s not wearing a cardigan and it’s chilly at this height. She comes back inside, runs her finger along the books on the shelves, their cracked spines hard to read in the dull light: books on politics, on art, on photography; screenplays and Star Wars, comics and comedies; all the lives that have lived here, and the shallow indentation they have left, spelled out in other people’s words.

Nick, damp with rain, walks in. The first thing he says is, ‘Did you know Joe is gay?’

He looks terrible. His hair is on end and he hasn’t shaved. He’s pale beneath his light Italian tan.

‘Why did you ask me to come here?’ she says, crossing her arms, the anger she feels towards him returning in a rush.

Nick says, ‘Bethany is lying to us. She was attacked. I know it!’

‘This has to stop. You can’t go round accusing people of hurting Bethany. You have to accept what the police said.’

‘I found her bottle of Prosecco on the beach – the one she took from the house – and it was almost full. She wasn’t drunk. She didn’t fall.’