‘Ex-cop, I thought?’

I think about that for a moment. Kush’s nose is leading him over the canal edge, a floating bird the target. I tighten the leash.

‘It’s complicated. Shall we?’

The resonant, jangling Westerkerk bells strike one in the morning.

‘You mind?’

Sabine pulls a cigarette out of her jeans, now a crumpled heap by the bed. She props herself up on the pillow.

‘Go for it.’

I wonder about joining her with a joint, but I’m startled to realize I don’t feel I need one. The power of a good evening out with an even better end. The only downer was Kush, who’d been in a stroppy mood all night, to the point when we’d got back here I’d put him to bed in the bathroom and closed the door. I wonder if dogs get jealous. He certainly hasn’t taken to Sabine. Well, tough. He’ll have to cope.

Next to me Sabine’s lighter flickers to life briefly.

‘Never slept with a cop before. Not bad.’

Earlier in the evening I’d found out she was ticklish. I apply that knowledge now until she’s squealing for me to stop.

‘That’s police brutality,’ she finally says when she can talk again. ‘I might have to report you.’

‘Good luck with that.’

She finishes her cigarette, taking the butt to the kitchen, and I notice as she steps out of the room a mark on her lower back I’d not seen earlier, a line of raised scar tissue. When she’s back in bed I ask her about it.

‘That guy, Tom.’

‘The one I met?’

‘Yeah.’

The mood’s changed now, and I regret asking.

‘It’s funny,’ she says after a while. ‘When I first met him I had this strong sense of him being the one, y’know? And it was good. We were good together, for the first six months or so anyway. You’d think that would be enough time to get to know someone, but it clearly wasn’t.’

‘What happened?’

‘It was weird. The change came so suddenly. We’d gone to the beach at Zandvoort, you know it?’

I’d been there with Tanya, and I remember with crystal clarity. It was the last time we’d gone anywhere together. ‘Yeah, been there a few times.’