He told her that he’d met Hannah one night in a pub. ‘I was at the bar and she was standing next to me. She looked kind of lost, so I smiled at her, made some small talk, and she said she’d been stood up by her friend. So I bought her a drink.’

‘Right,’ Clara said, keeping her gaze focused on the horizon as they trudged through a meadow full of cowslip. She had been determined that there would be no recriminations while she listened to his story, but now hurt and bitterness rose up inside her and she had to swallow hard to control it.

Glancing at her, Luke’s eyes widened. ‘No, nothing like that, Clara, I swear! But … I don’t know, there was something about her … I can’t explain it, it was like I knew her somehow, like I’d always known her. She was interesting, we talked about music and art and stuff; she’d been to the same festivals and gigs I’d been to, liked the same films, even been to the same exhibition I’d gone to the week before. Everything that came out of her mouth, all her opinions, were just spot on, I was … drawn to her, I guess. The conversation flowed between us, she seemed so switched on, so interesting. You know what I’m like, I love meeting people, talking to new people, we hit it off, that’s all.’

She nodded stiffly. ‘So what happened next?’

‘We said goodbye, and I put her out of my mind. I thought it had been nothing more than a pleasant evening. I certainly never thought I’d see her again. But as I was leaving work a month or so afterwards, she pulled up beside me in this van. She called out my name and seemed surprised to see me, asked where I was going and when I said I was on my way home, she told me she was heading east herself and to get in, she’d give me a lift.’

‘And so you got in,’ Clara said.

He glanced at her. ‘Believe me, I have regretted it every minute of every day since. I was fucking stupid. It was pure impulse, spur of the moment.’ He shrugged. ‘I just thought, fuck it, why not?’

‘Christ, Luke!’

‘I know. I know. She had a bottle of that whisky I like on the passenger seat, and I was really surprised, because not many people know about it, and it’s my favourite. But anyway, when I mentioned how much I liked it she asked if I wanted a bit, and it had been a long day so I took a few swigs while we chatted … The next thing I knew, I woke up in a pitch-black car park in the middle of fucking nowhere.’

‘The Downs.’