The scald of those words remained as she watched Orla walk away. The corridor was empty now, her classmates having disappeared to lunch, to the library, to a snatched half-hour in the thin autumn sunshine. Eva felt very small and alone in the echoey space, the tentacles of Orla’s shocked disapproval still painfully prodding her. She needed comfort and reassurance, and then she remembered Ross’s phone call during her tutorial and reached into her bag for her phone. Glancing at the screen, she saw seven missed calls from him, and two texts asking her to call him asap, both typed using capitals marking the urgency.

He answered after the first ring, as if he’d been waiting with the phone in his hand.

‘Where the hell have you been?’ he demanded, sounding breathless and angry. ‘I’ve been calling you for ages.’

‘I was in a tutorial,’ she explained, taken aback by the alarm in his voice. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘We need to meet.’

‘Okay, but—’

‘I’m in the Science car park. Come and find me.’

‘What, like right now?’

‘Yes, now. Jesus, do I have to spell it out?’

His sharpness disturbed her, but she said nothing about it. They made the arrangement and he hung up leaving her baffled at his urgency and unsettled by the anger in his voice – an anger that seemed directed at her.

‘What took you so long?’ Ross demanded.

Slamming the car door shut, she turned to face him. He sat behind the steering wheel bunched up in his puffa jacket, his jaw livid with a shaving rash.

‘I came as soon as I could. What’s the matter? Why are you so tense?’

‘This is why I’m fucking tense.’

His thumb moved over the screen of his phone, and he held it up to show her. The breath caught in her throat.

The picture had been taken outside Melissa’s house. Ross’s arm slung around her shoulder, his hand hanging low over her breast, whispering something in her ear, a secret smile on her face. The caption under the photograph read: Bad boy.

‘Who the fuck is this person?’ Ross asked, banging the steering wheel with the heel of his hand.

‘I’ve no idea.’

Her mind raced, jumpy with fright, while Ross cast around for someone to blame, his jaw rigid with frustration.

‘Did you tell anyone about us?’

‘No!’

‘Are you absolutely sure about that? No one at all? One of your friends?’

Guiltily, she thought of Corinne. Hadn’t she threatened as much? But how did she get Ross’s number? Either way, it wasn’t something she wanted to get into right now. Ross would only blame Eva for letting herself get caught in the first place.

‘I haven’t told anyone! Jesus,’ she said, indignation rising inside her.

He was hunched forward in the seat, shaking his head with agitation.