‘In here,’ she says, ignoring Bear, who ignores her back. He shakes the rain off and settles on the doormat.

I follow Angelica into the living room. Smoke hangs in the air and the terrace doors are closed, so we can see the rain sheeting across the city, but can’t hear a thing.

‘I warned you on Monday that he lies the whole time. So what’s this about?’

I’m light-headed from stress, so I sit down on the same bit of the sofa where Dan and I kissed. I clench my fist, driving my nails into my palm to stop myself remembering . . . ‘I don’t know if he is who he says he is.’

Angelica goes to the kitchen island and takes two slices of bread out of the toaster: they’re burnt, but she doesn’t seem to notice, slathering butter onto them and then jabbing the knife into a small tin of something black.

‘He’s a shit, is what he is,’ she says, loading two more slices of bread into the toaster before sitting down opposite me. ‘What have you found out?’

Does Angelica even know Dan has a criminal record and went to prison? Despite everything, I don’t want to ruin his relationship with his daughter, so I have to tread carefully. ‘Dan Lennon didn’t exist before 1997. So sometime before his thirteenth birthday he must have changed his name. That’s around the time he went into care, but I wondered if there might be more to it.’

She shrugs her shoulders, which makes her top gape: she’s so skinny she almost looks ill. ‘More than him being an inveterate liar, you mean?’

I don’t reply.

Angelica sniffs the toast. ‘This is caviar from the cupboard. Ever tried it? It smells rank, but I googled it and it’s fifty quid a tin. When I first met Dan, he had a shared fridge that should have been condemned by Environmental Health. But when I came here a month ago he was living like a king. I thought it meant he’d changed.’

‘I guess we all lived in hovels when we were young.’

She stares at me for a very long time. Then she bursts out laughing. ‘You’re still making excuses for him. Sorry to tell you this, but the real reason he appears to be living like a king is that this isn’t even his flat.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with renting—’

‘He doesn’t rent it. He’s borrowed it from a mate, while Casey is here. Which would be OK. A nice gesture even, if he hadn’t let us think it was his permanent place. It’s such a pointless lie, but Casey had to find out by going through his wardrobe and finding it full of someone else’s clothes. And finding the kitchen cabinets full of someone else’s caviar.’ She takes a bite of the toast, pulls a face.

‘Seriously?’ The shock of the lie makes me flinch and I look around me, reassessing the furniture and decor. I remember how surprised I was at how flash it seemed when I first came here. ‘What did Dan think would happen when his friend moved back in?’