The breeze over her skin felt delicious after the cloying humidity of the apartment and she felt herself relax momentarily. So much for making a clean getaway. She still couldn’t believe this wasn’t a done deal already. Marina had been so close to signing, the first pen stroke already on the paper, the money all but hers. Charlotte had thought she was hearing things when Marina had said those two little words: I can’t.

They zipped through the rush-hour traffic, Marina expertly angling the bike and somehow managing to make all the green lights. The city still steamed, its colours rich and deepening in the late afternoon glow, but its citizens moved differently now their working days were done. Coffees in cafes were replaced with beers in bars, women swapping shift dresses for shorts and men pulling the ties from their suits. Everything was loosening. Breathing out.

The city became a blur; she had lost track of where they were, as Marina nipped down side streets and alleys, popping out onto distinctive boulevards before going off-grid again, but it was only ten, fifteen minutes before she felt her begin to slow and look for somewhere to park. She came to a stop beside a bollard and kicked down the stand.

Charlotte jumped off, her muscles surprisingly trembly from the ride; it had always felt the same when she was a little girl, dismounting the horse after her lesson. ‘Where are we?’ she asked, looking up at the vanilla-coloured apartment blocks. Plate-glass windows reflected the world back on itself, striped canopies over the balconies deflecting the worst of the sun’s rays. The buildings, while not run-down like Marina’s neighbourhood, had a faintly sour tang, like turned milk; they had been there just a little too long.

‘Vallecas.’

Charlotte didn’t know it. ‘And why are we here?’

‘You’ll see.’ Marina took the helmet from her and locked both in the underseat storage. ‘This way.’

Charlotte followed after her, musing on the change between Marina now and half an hour earlier. The woman in that apartment had been resistant, stunned and then overwhelmed; she had been tempted. So what had stopped her? And why, with every step, was she becoming somehow stronger, as though she was growing sure of something?

Charlotte followed her in through a set of double doors. Inside was a lobby with a terracotta tiled floor, some eighties blue sofas and a depressingly poor framed print of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers. A woman at the reception desk looked up as they walked in and Marina pointed questioningly towards another set of doors, not stopping.

‘Oh, hey, Marina. Yes, down there.’

Charlotte caught the woman’s inquisitive stare as they passed by and knew she looked incongruous here: too manicured beside Marina (still in her slippers), too flashy in her dressed-for- Casino lunch outfit.

They pushed through the double doors and down a corridor. It was unremarkable – closed doors on both sides, nothing whatsoever to identify it, just a fire evacuation plan and more inferior artwork on the walls.