The pub smelled like a pub: rich, woody, beery and a little damp, like standing in a forest after it had rained. Ellen breathed in the smell while cutting a hasty beeline for the bar.

She had arrived early – unlike her – in order to call the shots on where they sat. She had imagined the scene: arriving five minutes late, a little out of breath from her trot from New Cross Gate station. She’d have to squeeze into a booth fitted around a sticky table, the cushion making a squeal as the backs of her bare thighs rubbed against it (it was warm, and she had dared a skirt, prompting her boss, Felicia, to make a schoolmarmish comment about the length of the hem). No, she needed to be there first. She ordered a large glass of house white, and then cast her gaze around the fairly empty pub, selecting the best place.

It was a pub near 49 Rokeby Close – one that she, Alexa and Sophie used to come to fairly often, back in the day. It was the type that appeared to be undergoing some sort of identity crisis. It had the exposed piping, the bookshelf of obscure books about Victorian London, and the moss-green paint job of something in the gastro tier. But its clientele – Goldsmiths students, plus the likes of Ellen, Alexa and Sophie – dragged the place down a peg or four. And that was not to mention the loos, which were stone cold, whatever the season, and smelled, always, of manure. (Not even human; it was a farmyard smell.) Ellen was enormously fond of the place.

She selected a booth by the window, assuming the window seat with the panoramic view of the entrance, though the early May evening sunlight poured through the glass in the doors, making Ellen squint. Still, she’d see the door opening, which was a start.

She took out her phone, partly as a prop and partly because she wondered if Lee had texted. He had not, and she was surprised at how disappointed she was.

Much to her enormous surprise, their relationship had stepped up a gear since the day of her imprisonment in the attic. One afternoon last week, she’d bumped into him in the entrance hall of their shared office building. She’d been on the way back from a meeting with a freelance social media manager called Piper, who wore a watch on a pendant around her neck and overused the expression ‘actionable insights’. Lee had been carrying a large box.

She’d appraised him, smirking. ‘Big box you got there.’ This came out more suggestively than she’d intended it to.

‘Yeah. New toaster. For the office …’ A pause. ‘I mean, I don’t think the toaster is the size of the box. That would make it a very big toaster. So, actually, it’s a bit of a waste of cardboard, really.’