She put her head in her hands. ‘Where the hell is he? I can’t bear this … nothingness. There’s so much I want to say to him.’ She glanced up at Mac. ‘Maybe he has left me. Maybe he just couldn’t find the balls to tell me to my face.’

Mac shook his head. ‘No. Not like this, not without his phone, without telling work, his parents … me.’

They were suddenly interrupted by an explosion of music from the flat above; a pounding bass so loud it made the ceiling vibrate. ‘For Christ’s sake,’ Clara shouted, jumping to her feet. With a sudden fury she stormed from the flat and up the stairs and began hammering on her neighbour’s door. There was no response. The music blared on. ‘Answer the bloody door,’ she yelled, giving it a kick. ‘Open it! Just bloody well open it right now!’

Unexpectedly it swung open. Her neighbour stared back at her, eyebrows raised in mock innocence. ‘What?’

‘Turn the bloody music down. It’s insane. I can’t live like this!’

Slowly, and with an infuriating smile on her face, the woman turned and sauntered to her sound system, then flicked the dial down a notch. She turned back to Clara. ‘Happy?’

Clara stared at her. She was so very thin, her shapeless oversized T-shirt only accentuating her bony limbs and sharp angles. Her finely featured face, peeping out between curtains of long lank dark hair, was covered by a thick, elaborate layer of make-up that was almost mask-like. She was gazing back at Clara with prickly belligerence. What on earth was her problem? Glancing past her at the flat, Clara saw that it was a tip; clothes and plates and CDs strewn everywhere, a potent smell of dustbins coming from the kitchen. And who the hell listened to trance these days anyway? ‘Yes,’ she said with icy sarcasm. ‘Thanks so much.’ She was about to leave when her gaze caught something draped over one of the armchairs. It was a sweatshirt. Luke’s sweatshirt. She stared at it in astonishment. A distinctive green and red design with an eagle on the back that he’d bought in New York a few years before. He loved it. She remembered how annoyed he’d been when he’d lost it. When was that, exactly?