‘Anyway,’ Frannie says. ‘Thanks for bringing it.’

‘Yeah, no problem. Hope you’re okay …’ Deb says, turning to leave. Cathy watches them go, thinking: Frannie has told her. Cathy would bet her house on it. The wine, the lost purse. It all points to chaos. A secret told. Another person involved.

But Cathy doesn’t feel anxious about it: she feels enticed. Frannie’s breached their trust. If Cathy’s right, maybe now she can too.

Frannie’s standing in reception, ready to go home, shivering even though it’s August. She looks like an actor on a stage without an audience, just waiting. Cathy wants to wrap her up, those skinny limbs in clothes that now look too large, and usually she’d at least go over to her, give her a smile maybe, but something stops her tonight. A strange kind of feeling, like somebody has removed the foundations of their relationship and forgotten to replace them. Has Frannie actually ever considered how Cathy feels? And, just like that, with that one straightforward question, the sympathy dies before it can really begin, like a rained-off sporting match.

‘It’s late,’ Joe says, shutting his consultation-room door behind him. He nods to his car, parked out front, and presses the key. It flashes orange, for a second, like a pair of eyes opening and closing. Frannie pulls on her coat and opens the door, letting in the smells of wet earth and thunder.

‘What do you reckon one fifth of the business is really worth?’ Frannie says, standing there, the glass door open. ‘I’ll pay it back to you, every penny.’ Joe waves his hand, not exactly in a forget it gesture, more one of tiredness, jadedness.

‘At least thirty thousand,’ Cathy says, and Frannie winces. Joe is still gathering up his things, and Frannie lets the door swing shut.

‘A pound,’ she says, watching the door close. ‘We gave away thirty thousand for a pound.’

‘What’re we going to do, though?’ Cathy says, looking out on to the dark countryside beyond Joe’s car, trying to elicit the conversation that they need to have. ‘I just don’t think – I don’t think he’s really gone away yet.’

‘What?’ Frannie looks at her sharply. She folds her freckled arms and leans her back against the plate-glass windows. Above her head, in backwards font, is the logo for Vets 24. They designed it one night almost a decade ago on a piece of paper in Frannie’s cottage, the week after they formally took over the company from their mother, and now here it is, immortalized.

‘I basically told Evan what would happen if he came back for more,’ Joe says quietly. ‘So,’ he adds, rubbing a hand across his forehead, then evidently decides not to speak. The words hang unspoken in the dim reception.

‘What?’ Frannie says. ‘What did you say would happen to him?’

Joe says nothing.

Cathy reaches out and straightens a few of the chairs, separating the cat and dog areas better, then sweeps up a load of fur. Something about this conversation feels volatile. The same feeling she might get if they were all drunk and speaking too many truths, or in a fast-moving car driven in a temper.