Honor spots Nevis’s pixie crop and Breton tee from the hospital entrance. There’s the old, familiar echo of Zoe, the friend she’d loved like a sister, in the way Nevis holds herself, as if she were not quite there. A woman she does not recognise sits beside her daughter. They don’t appear to be talking. She approaches without being spotted and lays a hand very gently on her daughter’s head. Nevis starts and twists to look at her mother. Her face is shockingly white, the green eyes drained of all colour, the expression fixed, like that of someone startled in death. It has been months since they have seen one another, months in which Honor has agonised over what she has done to hurt her daughter. Now is not the time to ask about such things.

‘What happened?’ A text had arrived from a number Honor didn’t recognise saying that Nevis was not hurt but to meet her at the Bristol Royal Infirmary. The number, she guesses, belongs to the woman sitting beside them whose name, she discovers, is Sondra.

‘I’m so glad you’re here,’ Sondra says. She glances at Nevis, inviting her to speak, and when she does not, she goes on. ‘Nevis’s friend Satnam collapsed on the Clifton Suspension Bridge tonight. We thought she was going to…’ she stops and flashes a look at Nevis, ‘…well, you know, but she collapsed before she could do anything drastic.’

The news is bewildering and for a moment Honor doesn’t know what to think. The Satnam Honor knows, the one who came to stay on the boat last summer with Luke, is full of life, kind, loyal, joyful and, above all, stable. The last person you would expect to do something so self-destructive, so dramatic.

‘How is she?’

‘Upstairs in intensive care. The nurse said she’s in a coma. That’s all they’ve told us.’ Sondra fills Honor in on the events of the evening but still it seems so abstract and unlikely. ‘Had she been drinking or taking drugs?’

‘Both, according to the police, but I’m not sure what,’ Sondra says, craning to look at Nevis who is sitting beside her with her head hung low. ‘Perhaps you know more?’

Nevis’s jaw begins to wobble and the sinews in her neck flex and pulse. A tic starts in her right eye. She is biting her lip so hard that a bead of blood appears. Honor takes her daughter’s hands. The palms sit limply in her own for a short while before Nevis withdraws and angles herself away, arms clutched tight around her chest.

‘Now you’re here I should go,’ Sondra says, rising. ‘I have to get my kids off to school. It was me who texted you so you’ve got my number. I don’t think there’s anything… but feel free to call me any time.’