To Jude, it felt like a threat. Talk to me, or else. She pulled away from the woman’s hand and shook her head.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Or rather, I’m not sorry at all. Go away. I’ve absolutely nothing to say to you.”

She walked away as quickly as she could.

It rained on the way and Jude arrived at her friend’s flat cold and wet. She was glad Dee’s flatmates were away for a few nights, at a wedding in Scotland. She couldn’t bear the thought of being with people, being looked at, pitied, criticized, judged. Dee sat her on a sofa and brought her a thick cardigan, a pair of walking socks and a glass of whisky. Jude took a gulp and felt a warmth spreading in her chest.

Dee sat opposite Jude, waiting for her to speak. The wind was strengthening. Jude looked through the uncurtained window at the cranes on the horizon, with lights picking out the giant raised arms. She thought of her and Nat’s flat, miles from here, which had felt like home but now seemed tiny and precarious.

“I’m in a bit of trouble.”

“Tell me.”

Jude told her everything from the dreamy teenage passion that had ended in the crash, up to the police interview room. Dee just nodded and looked at her and, when Jude had finished, she didn’t say anything.

“Well? Do you believe me?”

“Believe what?”

“That I wasn’t involved with Liam. Not in the past. I mean now, sexually.”

Dee hesitated, narrowing her eyes.

“Would you have? If he’d come to the cottage as he’d planned.”

“No.”

Dee nodded slowly, considering. This was why Jude had turned to her. She was a friend but she was also sternly dispassionate, turning things over to see them from every angle, careful in her reactions. “Does Nat believe you?”

“I don’t know. Yesterday he was . . .” She considered this. “He wasn’t just angry. It was worse. He was disappointed in me, that was the worst thing. Then he went out last night and didn’t come back, and that was before this photo started going viral. I haven’t talked to him today.”

“Did he know about you and Liam, how you used to be together?”

“I know it sounds weird. It’s complicated. Liam was complicated. My feelings for him. It ended strangely. It wasn’t something I could talk about. I didn’t have the words.”

“So the answer is no.”

Jude nodded slowly. “I didn’t tell him. Not even now, when we talked about what I’d done, how I’d lied to him and everything.”

They sat in silence for a few moments. Dee held up the bottle and Jude nodded, so she poured her some more.

“What shall I do?”

“Talk to Nat. What else is there?”