When our patrol was over, he walked me to the entrance of the girls’ dormitory. Leanne and Al were curled up in a corner together, while Daisy slept alone a couple of metres away.

“Johan,” I called as he headed back along the walkway.

He turned. “Yes?”

“Did you tell Daisy that she should break her attachment with me?”

“Why would I do that?”

“I don’t know. I thought perhaps you’d told her to when she asked you for advice. I didn’t dream for one second that she’d hear what I said to Al. I was just getting stuff off my chest. I didn’t mean to hurt her. Could you talk to her for me? Could you explain?”

He sighed softly. “See what attachment is doing to you, Emma?” He turned and walked back into the main house.

“Hi, Emma, how are you?”

I start as Frank sidles up to me, his hands in his pockets, head down, his beardy chin pointing towards his narrow pigeon chest.

“You don’t mind if I join you, do you?”

I want to say yes, I do mind, that I’m cherishing the time alone on the riverbank, watching the water swirl and drift, but instead I shake my head. Unlike the four of us, Frank arrived here alone, and he doesn’t appear to have made many friends. His attempts to befriend me have been creepy at worst, desperate at best, but who am I to reject him just because he’s got no social skills?

“Of course,” I say. “How are you?”

“Freaked out.”

“The cremation?” I nod towards the black, ashy reminder.

“That and … everything else.”

“I know what you mean.”

“Do you?”

“Yes, I do.”

Frank’s eyes are ever so slightly too close together, the pupils tiny dark pinpricks in the bright afternoon sunlight. “This is a thousand miles away from normal. It’s sure not sitting behind a desk, staring at a computer screen.”

“Is that what you did? Before you came here?”

“Yeah, I was a banker. In the City. I know, I know.” He holds up two hands as though in surrender. “Don’t tell anyone or they’ll feed me to the Maoists.”

I laugh. “I’m sure that’s not true, although you might want to keep it to yourself around Leanne. She’s a paid-up member of the Socialist Workers Party; at least she was when we were at uni.”

“That’s how you know each other? From uni?”

“Yeah. We all met there. I met Daisy in Freshers’ Week. I’d lost my flatmate in the cram to leave a gig and was scanning the crowd for her when a posh blonde-haired girl nudged me and said, ‘I can’t abide queuing. If we crawl under the merchandise table, we can get out through the fire door.’ The alarm went off and they had to evacuate the entire Students’ Union!”

“Sounds like something she’d do.”