He shrugged again. ‘I’m sorry, but it had to have been someone else. You must have got that bit mixed up.’ He tried another hopeful half-smile. ‘I mean, it was a long time ago. A really long time ago.’

Alexa was watching Ben carefully. His face was open, unguarded.

Ellen shook her head. ‘No way. I remember the name so well. I was absolutely heartbroken. Not to mention humiliated that I’d been dumped by some boy on the internet –’ She broke off, wrong-footed.

‘Oh, Ellen,’ Alexa said, her voice sounding strangled. She felt wretched and disoriented; the walls of the attic seemed more oppressive than ever. Throughout the story, she’d stolen glances at Ben’s handsome face, trying to read it for telltale signs, but spotted none. Was Ellen wrong? Alexa felt a curdling in the pit of her stomach.

Ben was breathing deeply through his nose. ‘Look, Ellen, this guy sounds like a shit,’ he said, quickly. He sounded sympathetic still, if ever so slightly impatient. ‘But look, I promise, it wasn’t me. It can’t have been.’ He shrugged again. ‘Really – none of this rings a bell, not even slightly.’ He turned to Alexa. ‘It wasn’t me,’ he said, flatly.

Alexa wished he hadn’t repeated himself for her benefit. She felt exposed, knowing Ellen was rooted to the spot, watching them both.

Jack, meanwhile, was staring at the floor. Outside, a van started reversing noisily.

‘Seriously,’ Ben said, a defensive edge creeping into his voice. ‘I don’t really know what else to say.’

There was a long pause. The beeping from the reversing van finally stopped.

‘Sorry?’ he added, hopelessly.

Alexa wondered dully if everyone else could hear her pulse thudding in her ears. Ben cleared his throat as though he was about to say something else, then seemed to think better of it. He didn’t look guilty, she thought, though he seemed very uncomfortable. Alexa observed Ellen. She was now staring out of the skylight, towards freedom. Her arms were folded firmly across her chest. She still looked a little flushed.

Undeniably, with Ellen’s stories, it was occasionally difficult to find the boundary where truth and exaggeration met. Something would happen – on the way to the pub, or to someone’s birthday party – they’d arrive and she would listen to Ellen plumping up a detail here, tossing a line in there, playing the room for laughs. In Ellen’s telling, everything became a little more vivid, a little more extraordinary.