It was almost 11 p.m. and Clara stood on the street outside University College Hospital blinking into the darkness, sick and disorientated after the bright glare of the intensive care unit. For several hours she had sat by Mac’s side, only letting go of his hand to be interviewed by the police and speak to Mac’s mother on the phone. He had woken, once, opened his eyes and, finding Clara there next to him, had smiled briefly. She had bent her head and cried with relief.

He was stable, at last; the doctors telling her that he would make a full recovery, that he had been ‘very lucky’, but that she should leave him now, should go home and get some rest.

Suddenly the enormity of it all, the shock of finding him, the horrible fear that he might die, the hours of stress and lack of food hit her with full force and she staggered towards a lamppost, leaning against it as her legs almost buckled beneath her, choking back the bile that flooded her mouth. She realized she was shaking violently.

‘Excuse me, are you OK?’ A passing nurse on her way into the hospital’s main entrance stopped and looked at her in concern. ‘Are you feeling unwell?’

‘I’m fine.’ Clara managed a weak smile. ‘Thank you. I’m just … tired.’

‘You all right getting home?’

Clara nodded and moved on, fighting her exhaustion. Where could she go to tonight? Not to Mac’s, of course. She couldn’t encroach on any of her other friends either, not at this time. The only possible place she could go to was her own flat. She stood there, hating the thought of it, swaying with tiredness. After a few moments, her heart sinking with resignation, she flagged down a passing taxi. ‘Hoxton Square, please,’ she said.