Honor lets out a bitter laugh, then checks herself. ‘Her birth mother’s parents were a nightmare. And mine were never really “around” in the traditional sense. During the late eighties and through most of the nineties they were busy colonising Planet Rave. I was brought along for the ride, and because they would never have had any money for babysitters. Now they’re on a commune in mid-Wales. More of a cult, actually. I see them once a year or so. They sort of left me to bring myself up. We were always on the road so I never had any stability, never really had any close friends until I met Nevis’s birth mother, but I had a great time with my imaginary friends and it made me pretty self-sufficient. It was an amazingly free childhood, I’ll say that for it, and it’s left me with this anti-authoritarian streak. I want to kick out against the man without having a man to kick out against, if you see what I mean.’ She looks up and smiles. ‘That’s probably more than you wanted to know.’

‘Not remotely. Explains the boat life. All that roaming.’

‘Maybe, though the Kingfisher’s been on a residential mooring for the last decade and a half so there hasn’t been much of that. I do feel more peaceful on the water though. And you’re always moving, aren’t you, even if it’s only on the currents or with the tide. We bargees know we can always cut loose and take off on the water. That’s the biggest part of it. Not feeling trapped.’ She looks up and smiles. ‘I wasn’t really cut out for the rat race. I haven’t really made very much of myself.’

‘I’ve had a look at the work you’ve done on the bulkhead. You’re a very fine restorer of boats.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Anyway, the rat race is hardly something to aspire to. I should know, I was the rat that the phrase rat race was invented for,’ Alex says.

‘Were you working on the tabloids?’ she asks, feeling her chest tighten. There had been a little coverage of Zoe’s death in the red tops. This was before everything had gone online. It hadn’t been kind.

‘Oh no,’ he said, reassuringly. ‘Local papers mostly. Actually it wasn’t particularly high-pressured. The rat bit was more about occasionally having to doorstep some mother who’d just lost her kid in a fire. I remember one poor woman turning to me and saying, “How do I feel? I couldn’t be happier. How the fuck do you think I feel, you knobhead?” Totally deserved. Nowadays I stay away from all that. Better for it.’

‘Ever married?’ Honor finishes the last morsel of food on her plate and lines up the cutlery.

‘Nearly, to my son’s mother, but no. You?’