Ten minutes’ drive away, Ratner turns down the steep slope of Marlborough Hill and makes a left onto one of the cul-de-sacs running parallel to the ridge. From here the only way out is for Ratner to come back the way he came. Cullen pulls the Volvo to the kerb, cuts the lights and the engine and gets out. The silver VW draws up to an ugly block of flats half-way along the street, a cheap piece of 1950s infill built to cover a former bomb crater, he supposes. In Cullen’s experience the only real way to disguise a wound is to pretend it doesn’t exist. That way no one else sees it either. Exposed and poorly dressed wounds make people vulnerable and Cullen doesn’t like to be vulnerable. A light rain is falling now. Cullen ducks behind a hedge and watches. He doesn’t have to wait long before a girl he recognises emerges from the flats and, pulling her coat over her hair, runs on heels to the waiting vehicle. The passenger door opens and the interior light goes. He sees Ratner lean over and fold the girl into an embrace.

Chapter 16

Nevis

The early morning rain has dried up. It is now clear and crisp and the streets smell of traffic fumes and coffee as Nevis makes her way towards the flats in Kingsdown where Tash lives. She’d asked Luke for Tash’s address and he’d texted back immediately. He’d Ubered to a party there once so the address was still in his phone.

Nevis realises that Satnam has other friends. Obviously. From time to time she has brought them back to the flat for chips or pizza and Nevis would make a stab at joining in with the chit-chat or otherwise slink off to the library or to her room. But she has never got to know any of them well and had always assumed they were casual mates, fellow students whose company Satnam occasionally enjoyed. Nevis herself never felt the need to be friends with anyone but Satnam. Other people are too complicated. Until the night on the bridge she’d assumed that no one knew Satnam better than she did, but she’s now wondering if Satnam has hidden corners that only her other friends have seen into.