‘Hi,’ he called. He was carrying a couple of shopping bags and smelt of wine and smoke. ‘I brought you these,’ he said, and thrust a bunch of stiff orange roses into her hands before pulling off his coat which was wet from the rain. ‘Sorry I’m late. Got held up. Shopping, you know how it is. Nightmare at this time of year, could hardly move for the crowds, you should have seen Hamleys, my God, the amount of money that people were spending on things, it almost made me flee. Should have done really – spent too much money on things I didn’t really want to buy; always the way at Christmas. Anyway, I hope you approve of what I got.’ He was talking too much, he knew that, but he couldn’t stop. Words cascaded out of him and he listened to them helplessly. ‘And I called in on my agent, and one thing led to another, drinks, and then I suddenly looked at my watch.’ He made a cartoonish expression of surprise, and looked at his watch once again, as if to check it really was that time. ‘I couldn’t believe how time had rushed by. I should have called, I know, but, you know how it is, and then my mobile seemed to be in a dead zone all of its own, should get a new one sometime soon.’

‘You saw Richard?’

‘Yes,’ said Adrian with hearty conviction. He wasn’t lying, although he felt that he was – he had seen Richard, had a few drinks, wandered round the crowded Thursday-night streets, phoned Frankie from a smoky pub and heard her voice on the answering machine, ‘leave a message after the tone’. What kind of message could he leave: oh please please please please? He’d pressed his phone off and sat for a few seconds, waiting for his feeling of dislocation and dread to subside.

‘Anything coming up, then?’ asked Irene.

‘Possibilities, just possibilities. You know how it is. We had a drink. Chatted.’

He listened to his hollow, cheery voice for a moment, picked up the wine bottle that was on the table and poured himself a hefty glass then held the bottle out towards Irene, who covered her own glass with her hand, shaking her head in refusal. He took a large swig.

‘Do you want something to eat?’ asked Irene. ‘I made us supper, sausages and spicy lentils. We were going to have it with a video, remember? I rented Ocean’s Eleven on my way home.’

‘Oh sorry. Is it too late?’ He did that mad watch-check again, and again widened his eyes incredulously. ‘We can still watch it, can’t we? I’m not very hungry. Had a sandwich earlier.’