I looked at the end I’d chewed. ‘I don’t have anything to put in it.’

He dug in his back pocket and slung me a pack of tobacco.

‘Got anything stronger?’

Jim shook his head with half a smile and unhooked a couple of mugs.

I sat cross-legged on the floor with my tea and leant towards the pile of books by the fireplace. Retro-looking Lonely Planets and Rough Guides were interspersed with more novels. ‘Have you been to all these places?’

He leant back in the armchair and shook his head. ‘I haven’t been out of Scotland.’

‘What? That’s insane. Really? But—’ I stopped myself saying But you’re, like, forty. I ventured on more gently. ‘Why not?’

He scratched his beard and did that cloudy-eyed thing.

I pushed on, quickly. ‘I want to go everywhere. The Far East, Australia, South America, Russia, well maybe not Russia, but everywhere.’

‘You’re here, though.’

‘There are reasons.’ I sighed. ‘Money, for one. In that I have none. And’ – I stopped. He glanced at me. I pushed my fist into the concrete floor. The sugar was kicking in. ‘I was supposed to go on holiday. A proper holiday. I mean, not travelling, but you know, sun, sea, sand and – all that, with a friend. But I messed it up.’

Jim didn’t say anything.

‘I messed everything up.’

He was gazing towards the open door, cradling the underside of his mug.

‘I might have killed someone.’

Anyone else would have leapt up, shaken my shoulders, said What the absolute fuck, Polly. Jim did the opposite. He went very still. Blinked at the doorway, before turning his head very slowly. ‘How do you mean?’ His voice was low, neutral.

‘I was in London. With a mate. And we picked a guy up, sort of, and I mean, everyone takes stuff. Everyone does. It’s just part of it. We thought he was just being shy, or polite, or that maybe he thought we were trying to sell it to him.’ I tried not to let my voice crack. ‘But he took it and it was all cool until we were waiting for the bus, we were going to go home together—’

I remembered Stef, whispering idiotically about spit roasts and Eiffel Towers and me smacking him in the mouth and telling him he’d be the only one getting roasted. The guy looking at us, smiling nervously, and a police car going by and Stef miming a blow job at it and whooping.

‘And, yeah. He collapsed and was sort of fitting and it must have been the E and we …’ I stared at the wall. ‘Ran away. And left him. On the street.’

I snuck a look at Jim, whose eyes were on the floor. He had done that thing again. Where he asked a question and my answer was ten times as long and he just sat there, letting my words spill out. And he’d just absorb it, like nothing was a big deal. I could tell him I’d sawn off someone’s face and eaten it as part of a five-course meal and he’d sit there, nodding sagely. Not judging.