Someone else came into the toilets, coughing ostentatiously to warn of his presence. Hamza didn’t care.

‘Fuck, man. Know what? I could really do with you to talk to right now, like, I mean the real you. Not this witchy ghost thing I’m making up in my head. My proper Clio queen, right here, because you went through this shit all the time, dint you? You knew your brain when it was being paranoid. You’d be able to sort out my head for me. You’d be able to tell me straight, listen mate, here’s what you’re going through. Here’s how much of it is all in your head; ain’t no such thing as ghosts if you don’t want there to be.’

The other guy finished pissing, fled the room without even washing his hands.

‘I miss you, Clee. I’ve been missing you for years and not realized it. Look, if you’re going to curse me, curse me. But don’t let it touch a baby. Don’t hurt anyone else. That ain’t you, to hurt people. That’s the opposite of what you was. Please. Begging you.’

He stopped, breathed in. He needed to get back to Gemma. As he uncurled his legs, wincing a bit, there was a shift in the toilet block. A higher-pitched noise in the air. Something electrical, buzzing, but not bad. Probably just a light, or the air con. Probably. But Hamza blew her a kiss anyway.

2019

They started recording ‘Warrior Queen’ a year and a half after she’d died. To the day, Hamza realized, checking his calendar as he smoked outside the studio, wanting to greet all of the musicians himself as they arrived. There had already been some good buzz online, thanks to Gemma sprinkling a bit of magic from her still-hot contacts book.

Za Flow going back into the studio after three years

Will fatherhood have softened grime’s political firecracker?

Za Flow’s new album rumoured to contain tribute to ex-girlfriend Clio Campbell

Clio’s Uncle Donald wasn’t well enough to come down, but he’d hooked Hamza up with all the people he needed to know, and posted a fat parcel of scored notes, a rearrangement of a song by Robert Burns Hamza hadn’t heard before, called ‘Bonnie Jean’. Hamza used the first three verses, had a couple of the folk-musician guys from Scotland improvise around them, then worked out a bridge to take it to his own lyrics.

Shiv West had come in on the third day, flown down at his own expense for maybe an hour’s recording. She’d not spoken much but fuck, man, she’d delivered on that song. Years of pain and smoke in her voice as she sang, almost like having Clio back there herself.

There was a lass and she was fair,

At kirk or market to be seen;

When a’ our fairest maids were met,