Leaping forward Honor stretches out her arms and manages, just, to stay the fall but she cannot stop it. Their bodies are entwined, now, each flailing but also clinging to the other. Honor feels herself land first, her thigh hitting the floor with a thud, Nevis landing an instant later, her right leg coming down hard on Honor’s shin and for a moment they are there, slumped in a shocked heap, together.

‘Nevis darling, are you OK?’

‘Yes, are you?’ Nevis rubs a spot on her upper arm.

‘I’ll be fine,’ Honor says, too shocked to feel any injury.

They begin to untangle themselves, Nevis standing first and reaching out a hand to help Honor. They brush themselves down. Leading her daughter to the sofa Honor takes her daughter’s hand and notes that the shaking has stopped.

‘Rest there and I’ll fetch some tea.’

When she returns some minutes later with the tea, Nevis, arms clasped around her legs, feet on the sofa, is gently rocking herself. Her eyes fixed on the middle distance, she does not immediately register the tea or her mother. In the dim slant of the light in the room her face appears sheeny with tears. Honor slides onto the sofa beside her. For a long while mother and daughter sit in silence, gathering themselves. At last, Nevis says, ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be. None of this is your fault, my love.’

Nevis’s neck snaps round to look at her. ‘Isn’t it? The fact is I left Satnam on Sunday evening when I could have stayed. The fact is Jessica told me she was in trouble and Tash said she was afraid of ending up like Jessica. And the fact is I could have done something, I don’t know, intervened in some way, but I didn’t. I didn’t do anything about any of it. Everything was there, all the numbers. I failed to add them up.’

‘Maybe there’s nothing to add up?’

Nevis shoots her mother a look of incomprehension. ‘Everything always adds up. I’m just not quite sure how. Tash told me she was having an affair with one of the tutors, Mark Ratner. She and Jessica must have had a fight about it. Jessica said the fight was over her ex and that she was upset that Tash had taken up with him. It’s possible that she was referring to the tutor. The university found out anyway somehow and they were trying to make Tash leave but Tash didn’t want to go. She told me she was going to talk to them.’

Honor sits back, trying to take this in. ‘Did anyone else know about Tash and Jessica and this Mark Ratner fellow? Another student? Anyone outside the university?’