‘No, no, I didn’t. One of the many things I have to live with.’

We took Putney Bridge over the river. I had not been paying attention to where we were, and the sudden expanse of water surprised me with its mobile beauty. The Thames glittered black and cold. It rumpled like a precious fabric in the wind, giving silver reflections of the moon as we mounted the bridge’s curving back.

‘And you . . .’ she said.

‘What about me?’

‘Did you ever wonder why Francis took to you so quickly? Why he told you about his plan first, before anyone else?’

‘We were friends.’

‘I know that, but I mean, maybe he was drawn to you on some level because . . . he could feel you were suggestible. Willing to do almost anything to be a part of us.’

I turned away from her and looked out of the window. I leant my forehead against the cool glass. We had come down past the public gardens on the bank of the Thames and paused at the lights.

‘Do you ever wish we had kept the money?’ she asked.

‘No. Not for a second.’

‘Me neither.’

The conversation was over; we were nearing our stop. I pushed the red button on the handrail and the light came on. The critical moment had passed. I breathed a sigh of relief, for I felt she had pulled up short of bedrock truth. What was it I had feared from her? It was her shaking my love for Francis. It was my unquestioning devotion to his memory that needed protection, because it was all that could justify my failure in life. She was casting doubt on whether he had ever been worthy of this kind of worship, chipping away at my graven image. I knew that if she succeeded, she would not free me, as she thought, but injure me horribly. A true tragedy was a kind of excuse for having no family or friends to speak of. I had always held Francis’s death and the events surrounding it as reason enough for never seeking out new loved ones. But if Francis was not the heroic figure he had seemed, then devotion to him was not tragic sacrifice, but mere foolishness and vanity. In short, my life so far would have been a waste. I would do anything to resist this idea.

We climbed off the bus at Putney Bridge tube station, the last stop before it headed back towards Hammersmith. A tall Rastafarian in a fluorescent orange waistcoat was undoing the padlock on the metal gate over the station doors. He sang quietly to himself. A delivery of flowers still wet with artificial mist to keep them fresh was being unloaded from a white van at the shop across the road. I caught their scent on the cold air, not merely the fragrance of roses mixed in with diesel fumes from the bus but also the clean, organic smell of the freshly cut and weeping stems. There was still no natural light, the streetlamps dyed the world a dirty orange, but as the girl from the shop signed the delivery man’s register I felt that we had lost our monopoly on London. It was no longer a place to play out our private drama; the scenery was coming to life again with business and commerce, the extras were waking up to be leads in their own days. There would be no more climbing over walls, no more deserted highways. I felt sadness at this, as the isolation that had been the lifeblood of our magical night ebbed away, but also some relief. There were things you could not say in daylight, there were rules, and more importantly it would be much easier to find a cab. Out of habit, I looked at my watch. It was almost six in the morning. I had been awake for nearly twenty-four hours. The fact itself seemed to make me feel tired.