The woman muttered a reply, but I was too caught up in my own thoughts to really hear it. I’d known Meg for over ten years. We’d gone to college together, both of us cajoled into doing a BTEC in Business Studies when the Creative Writing course turned out to be full. Meg wrote micro horror stories in biro, usually on people’s skin, a precedent for her current job as a tattoo artist. We were always close, and sometimes I confided in her when I felt down.

‘She sounds … very nice,’ the woman said, and I agreed. Meg was the closest thing to a soulmate I’d ever had. I’d miss her when I went to Norway.

The train pulled in to Newcastle a couple of hours later. I called Meg, and ten minutes later she was on the platform, waving her arm in the air. I noticed how dressed up she was, in a cerulean swing dress with white polka dots, her pink hair swept up in a chignon speared with a peacock feather. She pulled me into a tight hug, and then we walked to her car.

Meg’s flat was in the Avenues in Gateshead, close to Saltwell Park. When we pulled up I noticed a ‘To Let’ sign outside. I asked her about it but she didn’t answer. She made me dinner – a chip butty, a banana, and a cup of tea – while I told her all about the interview, about Tom and Gaia and Coco, and about my novel. She didn’t say anything. I noticed she’d had a new tattoo done. A big fox on her left bicep in thick black ink.

‘I have a favour to ask,’ I said finally, when she didn’t respond the way I thought she might. ‘Obviously I’m a bit skint just now, so I can’t afford to get my mail redirected, and David has blocked my number. Could you possibly nip round every month or so and pick up my post ’til I get back?’

She looked winded.

‘What’s wrong?’ I said.

She sat down at the table and clasped her hands, so that the letters on her knuckles read ‘LHOAVTEE’.

‘Look, I’m just going to say it,’ she said, lowering her eyes. ‘I’m … David and I …’

‘David and you what?’

I felt like I was in a meeting with my line manager, about to be given a Verbal Warning. She was wearing pea-green eyeshadow and navy lipstick. I always admired how Meg could pull off colour like that.

‘You’ve been pretty hard to deal with, Lex,’ she said tersely. ‘Cancelling plans at the last minute, not responding to text messages … You’ve never even paid me back that forty quid I lent you.’

‘When was this?’ I asked, flustered. ‘Forty quid?’

‘And you lost my Zara dress.’