I have still got to organise the exchange: my necklace for a second meeting. He’s suggested a drink, but when boys like Daniel suggest a drink what they really mean is more than a drink. At the very least he wants a chance to charm me, get me in bed again. It was so easy for him last time; he probably thinks it would happen as easily as the first time.

Thankfully Cain’s had other things to occupy his attention and hasn’t mentioned the ring again. But he will. He’s been quiet, working hard, a little distant. He was first like this when the media began to follow the story of the botched raid. Skelton killed himself three months and seventeen days after the investigation began. Six days after a document was leaked and published by the Blood, Sweat and Beers political blog that implicated him and suggested an arrest was imminent. A still from the headcam footage showing the victims reached the media, and the story of a once celebrated, now disgraced soldier metastasized into cautionary tales of war, potential CTE, a man pushed to the edge. Family, friends, old schoolteachers all said the same thing. War changed him. I didn’t get this information from Cain but all the others who gave interviews. A letter released by Skelton’s mother to the media revealed his attitude towards the leadership in the military. They trained us to kill but they can’t untrain us. Did Cain hold the same views? Were they let down by those in charge?

After Afghanistan, Cain showed no desire to go back to warzones, until one day he told me how much he would make as a private contractor for oil companies. They needed security, and others from his unit had signed up, making astronomical sums of money. ‘I could set us up for life,’ he had said. ‘If it wasn’t for this buggered knee of mine.’

I hold Cain’s hand in the pocket of his puffer jacket as another gust sweeps in from the sea. The boats rock, their masts swinging like needles hacking at the twilight sky. His phone sounds. ‘Another one,’ he says, extracting it from his jeans pocket. ‘It’s for this weekend.’ Once he lowered the price on WeStay, the floodgate opened. I’m growing used to that familiar chime of his phone, heralding a new booking. Dan and Cherry Evans stayed last weekend. Now so many others have booked. The squares of the calendar are filling up. Each one represents more money, greater financial security. One step closer to the life we want.

‘I’m still a little nervous about the state they left the house in,’ I say. ‘What if they stole something?’

He takes his hand from his pocket and wraps it around my shoulders. ‘Everything will be fine. Trust me.’