There was a rolled-up futon in one corner, but no cot or bed for Alfie. Jude very carefully laid the sleeping boy down in the center of Danny’s large bed and pulled a cover over him. He lay as if he had fallen from a great height, arms and legs flung out, breath puffing at his lips. She worried that if he woke, he might roll over and fall off the bed, so she put a pillow on either side of him, then turned to go.

He started to whimper, and she stopped. His eyes had flicked open and he was staring at her.

“Go back to sleep,” she whispered, and continued to tiptoe toward the door.

The whimpering grew louder, turned into a hiccupy sob, then another. Jude murmured to him, but his face screwed up and he opened his mouth loud and gave a howl.

Jude went back and sat on the bed. The howls subsided. He stared at her, as if making up his mind about how to proceed. She stroked his hair and made what she hoped were comforting sounds.

His eyes started to close and his breathing deepened. She waited a couple of minutes and then very gradually she straightened up. His eyes opened and his face puckered. His mouth opened again and he took a shaky, preparatory breath. She lay down on the bed beside him and he curled his fingers into her hair. Gradually she could feel rather than see that he was falling back into sleep.

She turned her head away from Alfie slightly. There was a bedside table, clearly homemade, a few inches from her, on which there was a pouch of tobacco, a razor, a book about sea birds, an oversized watch, some scattered coins, a happy deck of cards, and a little wooden whistle, also rough and hand-carved. This must have been Liam’s side of the bed, where he’d lain night after night with Danny beside him, where he’d read, made love, argued, slept, dreamed his dreams.

It was so very strange and wrong and horribly sad to be lying where he had lain, with patterned wallpaper dripping off the walls and a drawing of trees so real she felt she could walk into it.

Beneath her, the music thudded.

Jude woke with a lurch that brought her to a sitting position before her eyes were open, and for a few seconds she had no idea where she was. Alfie was still fast asleep so she eased herself off the bed, fumbling for her phone to find out the time. It was a few minutes before two. She’d been asleep for hours. There was still music playing, but she could no longer hear voices or the clatter of glasses. She crept along the corridor to the bathroom and washed her face in cold water. Her suit was crumpled, her hair stood up in tufts and her eyes were puffy.