‘No.’ He put the CD in his pocket. He knew she wasn’t only talking about Paul. She was talking about the thing that had happened last night – the knowledge that had come to them in that flash of light as he came inside her. ‘We don’t.’

Chapter Ten

Ten

It was still light when they returned home from work. The Newtons’ car was parked in its usual spot. There were streaks of bird shit on the window on the passenger’s side. Jamie knew Chris would be annoyed by this, as he always kept the car immaculately clean, soaping and waxing it every Sunday as if he was adhering to an age-old custom, passed down through the generations, father to son.

‘We ought to get it over with now,’ Kirsty said.

Jamie really didn’t want to do this. He hated any sort of confrontation. Nothing in his experiences had prepared him or taught him to deal with a situation like this. Of course, he’d had run-ins with people before – at school, at work, in many different situations – but this situation had an edge to it: a weird edge. It made him feel nervous.

‘Come on then,’ he said.

They descended the concrete steps to the basement flat. Garden flat, Jamie reminded himself. He went down first, Kirsty a step behind him, holding onto the back of his shirt, pinching the cloth between her fingers. The space outside the Newtons’ front door was very well kept, with small potted trees in the corners, and window boxes alive with pink and yellow flowers. There was a doormat with WELCOME spelled out on it and a ceramic plate displaying the house number, with the words Garden Flat added beneath.

Jamie rang the doorbell. He rubbed his palms – which had started to sweat – on the thighs of his trousers and held Kirsty’s hand.

There was no answer.

‘Maybe the bell doesn’t work,’ said Kirsty. ‘Try knocking.’

Jamie lifted the letter box and banged several times, quite loudly. He stood upright, stretching to his full height. He had been practising what he was going to say all day, running through several variations, from angry (‘How dare you record us.’) to reasonable (‘Let’s talk this through, shall we?’), but now he felt thoroughly confused. He wasn’t sure what he was going to say.

‘The best thing,’ Kirsty had said in the car on the way home, ‘is to appeal to them as friends. After all, that’s what we’re meant to be. I mean, we were never going to be blood brothers and sisters, but we got on with them OK. I think once we’ve spoken to them – made contact – we’ll be able to sort this out, nip it in the bud. The worst thing to do would be to go down there and start shouting at them.’