‘She maybe didn’t have the power till she became a spirit. I spoke to my grandma, Za. That’s what she reckons. Oh God, listen to me. I know, I know it’s stupid. I – just – everyone keeps dying, everything keeps going wrong, and I’m so, so scared for my baby.’

This time he didn’t feel able to hush her, and comfort her, because he no longer knew which way the world worked. Could it be he’d angered Clio with his tribute, going public, taking away from her death? How would she know? She’s dead, man, he told himself. But there was something he just couldn’t let go, now.

‘Calvin, you believe in ghosts? Like, that they could haunt you?’

Calvin shook his head, slowly, his stoned eyes stretching in his face.

‘Never used to, but I knew a gal who was convinced she was being chased by an evil spirit, mate. She said it needed to be appeased, like with sacrifices an stuff. Terrible things happening to her till she did. Not something you want to mess with, innit?’

Appeasement. That’s why he’d spoken to that little Scottish journalist guy, when he came knocking. If his name could help an old friend of Clio’s get a book telling her true story published, that was a good thing, wasn’t it? In the interview he was only complimentary, allowed his own history to be rewritten, on the record, as he nodded along when the journalist suggested that it was Clio who’d made him political, had made him into a better musician. He bit his fingers and let it happen. Anything just to get her off their back.

The baby was small. Had stopped growing. They needed to get her out early. Gemma had been a ball of tension for eight months, constantly knotting her fingers together, skinny and wrecked except for the fucking huge bump, swelling out of her like a parasite, sucking away at everything that had made her her. Locked in a toilet cubicle for two minutes while they readied her for theatre, Hamza pulled the seat down and curled himself up, knees tucked to his chin, his breath between his knees as he spoke.

‘Right. Listen, Clee. I can’t do this no more. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything. Yes, I used you. I strung you along. All that. I understand you would want to take your revenge. And you have. It’s worked. The last nine months has been hellish, man. Fucking worst. I was a cocky little shit and I needed to feel all that. But you’s dead now, man. You’ve got to let us be. Please. Let this baby be all right. Let Gemma just have the baby, and I will – I’ll write a song about you. I’ll never let them forget what you did. I’ll be singing your name always.’