Cold air hit his face and he understood that she’d walked him out of the pub, on to the street.

‘I just know. I know in my body. It was like a switch this morning – something had just flicked off – but I couldn’t work out why.’

They were leaning against the wall of the pub. He was crumbling limestone under his fingers. She reached inside his jacket again, this time for his cigarettes, lit two and put one in his mouth. It seemed like something a girl in a film would do.

‘Do you think you can drive, Danny? Are you going to be OK?’

Oh, who knew. Who knew. He nodded, a very small movement, but his head felt so heavy it might fall off.

‘Let’s just get back to the car, OK?’

She took his arm to walk him down the street.

‘I mean, I can’t drive us. I couldn’t anyway without a licence but I think they’d pick up pretty quickly about my brain right now, ching ching? Eh?’

She was trying to make a joke, and he let her have a tiny flick of a smile.

They sat inside the car, and Clio leaned over him to turn the key in the engine, put the radiator on. It was getting dark already. He didn’t want to sit in this box with this woman for the next two hours. He didn’t want to go back to their flat and begin the process of splitting up their things, watch her pack away her clothes and books. He didn’t know what else they could do.

‘What was the other story?’

‘Sorry?’

‘You said there were two stories. That heap of shit you were spinning yourself into a frenzy about, that was the first story. What was the other one?’

‘I don’t know. I was hoping you’d tell me. I think there probably isn’t one.’

She stroked his face. He pushed her hand away, forcibly.

SAMMI

Brixton, 2009

It will start with a friend request flashing up there on the corner of the screen. Sam will click on it, and it will take her a second to connect the name and the tiny thumbnail picture, red hair, red lipstick. There will be a – something – there. A faint unease, somewhere at her temple. She’ll think it through. Nothing had ever been proved, she’ll think. It had all been speculation, insinuation. The way a group can turn on nothing, a person can become a scapegoat.

Accept. Why not.

Half a minute later, there will be a peaceful chime; a red message icon. No hello. No acknowledgement of the years passed, of blood, bad or otherwise.

SAMMI MY FIREND TOOK THIS ON HIS PHONE IS THIS MARK CARR????!!!!

A picture of a middle-aged man, grainy, profiled, taken in bad light. A moustache, a tuxedo, a champagne flute.

Brixton, 1996