“Like what?” she asks, quite rightly. She’s not stupid. She takes care of most of my affairs. It’s something else she needs, another form of containing me. But, again, I have to let her have it. The alternative isn’t an option. She also saw my face, my persona, in the entrance hall of The Manor, probably even watched me give a woman a flower. And now I’ve gone AWOL. She’ll be having me sectioned.

“I’m moving a week tomorrow. I have a few things I need to set up in the city, and Cathy wants to see the new place. I may as well stay at my rental.”

“Right,” she replies, very quietly. Suspiciously.

“I’m reachable on my phone if you need me.”

“We were supposed to go over the memberships.”

“I’m sure you’ve got it covered.” I cut the call and turn the stereo on, cocking my elbow on the window and focusing on the road as Massive Attack’s Angel fills the car and my mind wanders to unknown places. Ava—my angel—is definitely from above . . . although I know they’ll be no love on the horizon.

On Sunday at one thirty, I pull up outside the Tesco local to Cathy’s little terrace in Hampstead. I park on the double yellow lines to wait for her, tapping the wheel. I feel fresh. Awake. Alert. Fuck me, I haven’t had a drink for two days, and that is fucking monumental. I can’t even explain why. Or how I resisted. It was there, the same liquor that usually temps me back into debauchment daily, sitting bold as brass on the sideboard in my rental. I don’t think I looked at it once. Weird. Very weird. I spent hours trawling the Internet for anything I could find on Ava O’Shea. That might have kept me distracted. And the morning and evening runs. And the dozens of times I went to call her but decided against it. Because, of course, it’s the weekend and she’d have an excuse to either not take my call or answer and brush me off because she doesn’t work on weekends. Because I’m a client. At least, I am for now.

I spot Cathy emerging from the supermarket weighed down with bags. “What the heck is she playing at?” I jump out of my car and jog across the road. Her beam could split her face when she clocks me.

“Jesse, my boy.”

I claim the bags from her hands and let her smother my face. “Hey.”

She squeezes my cheeks. “You look well,” she says, taking a step back to assess me. “Really well. What’s happened?”