Was that why her pulse was soaring now? Why she was listening for Steph’s next words, experiencing her neighbor’s anxiety as a charge in the air? With a rustle of paper, Gilbert’s pink nose emerged from his nest, as though he’d woken and sensed it too. Emma wondered whether she should run upstairs and offer to help. Her cheeks burned as she imagined explaining that she’d been crouched in a cupboard eavesdropping on Steph’s phone calls.

She hunched into her dressing gown. There was nothing but receding footsteps now, and a soft thud, as if Steph had walked to the other end of the flat and closed a door.

2.

STEPH

The smell of Heathrow’s first-class lounge always clung to Steph after a long shift. Some days it was the lingering perfume of a traveler, who’d been polite and interesting, or the sweet vanilla scent of expensive sun lotion. On more stressful days it was the trace of her sweat inside her suit, or the champagne breath of an arrogant customer who’d stood too close. Today the lounge had been packed with impatient VIPs, and Steph, as manager, had felt obliged to take responsibility for them. Her professional smile had creaked as she’d delivered single malts and dark espressos alongside updates on their flights. On the way home there’d been traffic, traffic, traffic, her makeup had seemed to slide off her face in one melting mask, and her headache had exploded across her skull.

And now Freya wasn’t home.

Steph was sure she hadn’t said anything about seeing mates after sixth form, and it wasn’t the right night for volleyball or running club. She knew Freya’s schedule as well as her own and she’d begged her to always stay in touch about what she was doing. It was a deal they’d recently struck: Steph would (in theory) stop being quite so overprotective, as long as Freya promised at least to text if she was staying out. She was seventeen. A bundle of leggy energy and hormones. No longer the little girl who would seek out her parents’ faces in the crowd at all her sports matches, then snuggle between them on the sofa afterward, drinking Steph’s “secret recipe” hot chocolate with a spoon. These days, Steph had to remind herself to let her daughter breathe, let her live.