We took an arm each and walked down the stairs together to the taxi.

‘Thanks for all your help.’

‘I’m sorry you met me. You wouldn’t have ended up here otherwise.’

‘It’s not your fault. We often end up in places like this.’

I kissed them both goodbye and made my way back upstairs.

I opened the door of Stev’n’s room and looked in. Everyone horizontal. Plates being passed round. No Sophie.

I tried the other bedroom door. The lights were off. Two shapes were wrapping around each other on the bed.

‘Paul?’ said Sophie.

*

There was one thing I needed to do before I left.

One, two, three plates into the bowl of Stev’n’s en-suite toilet.

‘What the fuck did you do that for?’ asked Culkin, and started to laugh.

‘You fucking mummy’s boy,’ said Stev’n.

Someone else was fishing them out of the toilet. ‘I think some of it’s salvageable,’ he was saying.

‘We’ll just ring some more in, you twat,’ said Stev’n. ‘Fucking mummy’s boy. You’re finished at the magazine.’

‘I’m finished,’ I agreed, and turned to take down the framed image next to me of the woman’s body broken stylishly. Stev’n stood up and sat back down as I made as if to swing it into his face. I thought about stepping out on to the balcony and hurling it off, but I would probably kill someone, or it would end up on Instagram as an artistic gesture in the magazine’s name, so I tucked it under my arm instead and left the flat.

*

When I got home Mary was lying on the sofa that had until recently been Jonathan’s bed. She was wearing a dress and I found a blanket to put over her legs. There was a mouthful of white wine left in a glass resting on the carpet. She had not taken her trainers off, and they were lightly scuffed with grass stains. I rested the photo I had stolen against a wall.

‘Are you asleep?’ I said.

‘Yes,’ she said, not opening her eyes.

‘Are you playing it cool and pretending you’re not delighted to see me?’

‘I can’t see you. I would have liked to see you a lot earlier.’ She opened her eyes. ‘What the fuck is that thing?’

‘I stole it from Stev’n. It’s a photo of a model posing as a woman committing suicide.’

‘Is that what you want?’

‘To die?’

‘No, do you want beautiful women to die? Is that what men secretly long for?’

‘I don’t know: I’m not men, I’m me. I don’t want anyone to die.’

‘Not anyone?’

‘Well, one or two men, but no women who I can think of. Don’t worry, I stole it to destroy it, not to hang it on our wall. What’s up with you, anyway? What happened to Nathan?’