They catch each other’s eye. ‘Will he be angry with you?’ Bex asks, turning away. ‘For hanging up on him?’

‘He doesn’t do anger,’ Kate says, laying out some cutlery on the table.

‘Count yourself lucky. Nothing wrong with a bit of anger, mind. Shows passion.’ Bex raises her eyebrows suggestively as she sits down at the table, idly stacking away some magazines. She grabs the top one, a copy of Wired, and flicks through it.

‘Actually, he was angry with me once,’ Kate says, sitting down opposite Bex. ‘Early on, when he came to see me at Mum’s.’

‘Staying with in-laws can be very stressful.’

‘It wasn’t that.’

Kate tries hard to think back to the visit, soon after she’d left hospital. She was spending a few weeks with her mum before the move down to Cornwall. Rob used to visit at weekends. Did he ask her about her memory? She was still heavily medicated for her injuries and those early days remain a blur.

‘What was it, then?’ Bex asks.

‘I failed a recognition test of some kind. He showed me some images of faces.’

The details start to come back, but it’s like she’s seeing everything through a thick fog. Her mum had gone shopping and they were at the kitchen table in her house, photos laid out in front of her, as if they were playing pairs.

‘Do you recognise this man?’ Rob had asked, pointing at someone – a doctor, she thinks it was. White coat anyway. She’d shaken her head and his fist had slammed down onto the table. So hard her herbal tea had spilt. She remembers that. He suddenly became very kind to her, mopping up, apologising, saying he’d had a stressful time at work. And then he’d asked her to put on the headset. It was the first time and she was scared, although her fear was numbed by the medication.

‘You OK?’ Bex asks.

‘Fine,’ she says, putting that day out of her mind.

‘He’s just trying to help you,’ Bex continues, resting a hand on hers. ‘And he’s done a pretty good job, I’d say.’

‘You’re right.’

She tucks into the yoghurt, deciding not to tell Bex what she can remember. She’s not sure if she’s imagining it all anyway.

‘I texted Jake this morning,’ Bex says, changing the subject. ‘Told him he can stay at mine.’

‘That’s kind of you.’ And surprising. Maybe they’d make a good couple. Bex would be better at knocking him into shape than Kate ever was.

‘Poor sod.’ Bex pauses. ‘You’d better ring Rob back.’

She’s right. She turns on her phone and a voicemail message pops up. Before she can play it, though, the phone starts to ring.

‘I’ll leave you to it,’ Bex says, getting up from the table with her coffee. ‘I’m going to take a shower.’