Gemma was dressed by the time he came out, hair scraped back on a hard face, forcing mascara round her red eyes. He stepped behind her, wrapped his arms around her waist and she tensed up.

‘Cummere, babe. I’m sorry I shouted. This is – this is really fucking hard for me. I ain’t worked out what I think yet, but I promise you if I need to talk about it I’m gonna come to you. All right?’

She relaxed a little.

‘And I need you to know this ain’t got nothing to do with you, right? Clio was sad. She had problems way before I met her. You and me’s been together for a long time, now. There were loads of other stuff going on with Clio. OK?’

‘OK.’ She was going to say something else. He could see it coming.

‘Listen, hon. I wonder if maybe you should go public about this. Like, everyone is paying tribute to her. Maybe you should do, like, an Instagram story or something. Announce it all – just say that, like, your record company didn’t want anyone to know you had a much older girlfriend or something. Can’t possibly hurt you – it’s like everyone’s discovering her for the first time, her politics and stuff. Poor cow. She’s suddenly well cool but she had to die to get there.’

‘Na, dunno, babe. That’s not me. I don’t even like people knowing about us; why’m I going to put something that personal out there like that?’

‘See, I also thought it might help you with whatever you’re going through. Try and put it into words, sharing it with people. Could become a new track, maybe?’

She was good, Gemma, he had to give her that. While he’d been switched off in the empty tub she’d come up with a whole plan to get him to deal with his feelings, boost his profile and maybe shake him out of the creative block he’d been stuck in. He wondered again whether he would have even had a career if they hadn’t met. Not like this one.

‘I don’t – she fucking killed herself, Gem. I don’t want to be, like, profiting out of that.’

‘I’m not saying that at all. Is that what you think of me? God. I’m talking about paying tribute to someone you loved. You did love her, Za. You knew her in ways nobody else did, maybe better than anybody else. You should do this. Right, I’m off. Gimme a kiss. You call me if you need me, OK?’

Hamza lay back on the bed, flicking at his phone. The Gram; couple of private messages from that little babe at the Bristol gig last month to delete. He typed in her name as a hashtag: #cliocampbell. The search function suggested #cliocampbellrip.