‘I do,’ Tessa said. ‘Which is why I agreed to help. I don’t want to be caught up in this. It’s been killing me, Matt. I’ve been so worried. I can’t sleep.’

‘Shit, Tessa. You don’t need to put up with this. I’ll deal with it, OK? I love you, but this is between me and Lindsey.’

‘I love you too,’ Tessa said. ‘Good luck, big brother.’

He had a shower and a cigarette and a coffee, then he called Lindsey. His sister had evidently got there first.

‘You didn’t wait long, did you?’ she said.

‘For what?’

‘To replace me. Tessie told me about Annabelle. She’s been around a while, huh? That was the name you called me. You’d hardly left home, and already I was nothing to you.’

Tessie? No one called his sister Tessie.

‘I don’t want to argue about this,’ Matt said. ‘There’s no point. I met someone else. I’m not trying to hide it.’

‘You’re pathetic. I can’t believe you’re going to be the father of my child. I’m going to have to put up with you for years.’

‘Then don’t do it,’ Matt said. ‘You don’t have to have the baby.’

‘How dare you!’ she shouted. ‘It’s my body and my baby, and you don’t get to tell me what to do!’

‘I wasn’t telling you what to do. I was just saying—’

‘I hate you, Matt. I can’t believe I ever thought you were the one for me. I hate you.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I am. I don’t want to upset you, but I don’t know what to do or say, Lindsey. We can talk about it more, if you like.’

‘There’s nothing to talk about. I’m having the baby and you can do whatever you want. See it, be there for it, or ignore it. I don’t care.’

‘I’ll be there for it, of course,’ he said. ‘I’ll—’

The phone went dead. He hung up and slumped against the wall of the phone booth. This was a disaster.

There was only one thing he could do, and it was the last thing in the world he wanted to do.

He was going to have to go home and sort this out.

‘I thought it was all over?’ Annabelle took a drag on her cigarette. ‘You guys broke up?’

‘We did.’

‘Then why do you have to go home to see her?’

There was another note in his letter box when he got back from the phone call – how he wished it was the only note he’d got that day – saying Meet me at our bench at noon. A xx

Our bench. They had a bench.

‘She called and left me a message to get in touch. She had news.’