She was feeling sick with her migraine and with old memories, ones that she had pushed deep inside her for years.

Making her way into the bedroom like a blind person, she closed the curtains, took off her clothes and climbed into bed, where she lay curled up in the merciful darkness, waiting it out.

Nat called her a super-sleeper. After years of working different shifts, she could lie down anywhere, at any time, close her eyes and be asleep within seconds. But for a long time that morning she couldn’t sleep. Her eyes pulsed and dark shapes moved through her head.

Liam Birch, with his dark eyes and his smile. She saw him at eighteen and as he was now. He looked older than thirty, as if life had duffed him up. One of his teeth was chipped. He had tiny wrinkles round his eyes. He had a beard and nicotine-stained fingers. His jacket was old—but he had always worn old clothes, rummaging through second-hand shops for things that took his eye. He was still beautiful.

Now this. It felt almost comic, like a practical joke. Perhaps that’s what it was. It felt like a child’s game, with the instructions about where to meet and the secrecy. Cross my heart and hope to die. She would collect his car, drive up alone and when Liam arrived he would tell her what it was all about and that would be the end of it.

And she had promised not to tell anyone.

Which meant not telling Nat.

Which meant she would have to tell a lie.

“What are our plans this weekend?” asked Nat. “You’re off, aren’t you?”

They were eating spicy coconut dal, which she often made after working nights. She felt ravenous after her migraine.

“Dee invited us to theirs on Saturday,” he said. “Some kind of party, and then there are the fireworks in the park.”

Jude put her fork into the creamy mess on her plate and stared hard at it. This was the moment she had been dreading. She was tempted to tell him a partial version of the truth. A friend had asked her for a favor. It was nothing. But as she’d played the conversation over in her head, it kept coming out wrong. Nat would start asking questions. What if he objected? It was easier just to lie. It made it simpler.

“I’m sorry, I can’t,” she said, and stepped across a line. “I’ve just arranged to go to see my granny.” Jude’s grandmother had been ill and she had been talking about going to see her. She lived in Gloucester. It was plausible enough and she knew that Nat wouldn’t want to come with her.

“Would you like me to come with you?”