‘Who, Tash?’ Luke raises his hands in a gesture of surrender. ‘Look, Nevis, I’m gutted about Satnam, I really am, but a part of me thinks I shouldn’t really get involved. It’s a bit weird even being here to be honest.’ He gazes into his can as if studying something there and a mottled redness spreads up from his neck. ‘She dumped me, remember?’

‘She dumped you?’ Satnam had always told Nevis it was the other way around. She watches his lips press together tightly, and the redness finds its way to his eyes. He coughs. ‘Uh yeah. She cheated on me then said she couldn’t live with herself or something.’

Nevis is winded by this news. Satnam cheating?

‘I know. Doesn’t seem like her at all,’ Luke said, off Nevis’s expression. ‘But I swear that’s what she told me.’

‘You don’t know who with?’

‘What fucking difference does it make?’ He looks up at Nevis from under his eyelids. The effect is faintly menacing. ‘I didn’t mean… I’m upset.’

‘No, I’m sorry. It was a stupid question. It’s all a lot to take in.’ A day ago she would have sworn that Satnam had never lied to her or kept secrets. And now, it’s become evident she’s done both.

Luke drains the can and bites his lip. Then putting his hands on the table in a gesture of finality, he says, ‘Look, I should be going. But, you know, keep me posted, OK? And if there’s anything I can do, just ask.’

Later, after Luke has left, and Nevis is in her room getting ready for bed, an email pings into Nevis’s inbox. Thinking it’s from Luke, she picks up her phone, taps through and sees Tash’s name and below it her message:

So which of us is next?

Chapter 15

Cullen

On his way home Cullen very nearly runs over a fox. He’s not his usual self at all. Turning into his road he spots a man walking out of his front gate and manages to pull the car to the kerb and turn off the lights without being seen. He waits until the man has got into his own vehicle further down the road and driven off. The same joker who was round earlier, no doubt. He dodged a bullet there. For a while anyway. He had hoped to be able to sit on his own in the living room and empty a generous four fingers of scotch into his belly but he can see now that the living-room lights are still on. Not only is Veronica awake, she’s lying in wait, determined to get her claws into him before he’ll be allowed to get some sleep.