‘I don’t.’

Tash puts out her cigarette and begins to roll another and Nevis feels very young in her company. ‘Anyway, none of that makes it your fault.’ She catches Nevis’s eye then looks away. Her jaw begins to work up and down on some gum. Silence falls. Nevis opens her mouth to speak but the words don’t arrive in time. Tash rolls her eyes. ‘Whatever you’re about to say, just say it.’

‘About that picture, the one at the Valentine’s party.’

Tash spits the gum into her hand and sticks it under the table.

‘If you must know, Jess and I had words. Satnam played peacemaker. That was all. It was about nothing. I can’t even remember what it was about.’

‘Why didn’t you mention that before?’

‘I’ve just said, it was nothing.’

There comes a ping. Gathering herself, Tash reaches for her phone and reads, her eyes growing bright, a half-smile appearing on her face. She taps a couple of words in return and, turning to Nevis, says, ‘Listen, good to talk and that, but I need to be somewhere.’

‘Now?’ Nevis says, unable to hide her surprise.

‘Yes, now, as in right away,’ Tash says, hurriedly, rising and bidding Nevis to do the same. Nevis stands and, slipping on her coat, reaches for her backpack.

It’s still clear and crisp outside now. A pair of Canada geese fly over, cackling, then disappear. At the street corner Nevis feels her legs break into a run and she does not stop until she reaches the entrance to the flat above the chippy. She plugs in the entrance code. The door lock clicks and there is an instant when she thinks she can see the figure of a woman standing in the hallway. Then it’s gone and all that remains is a faint smell of something Nevis recognises but cannot place.

Inside the flat, she moves over to the sofa, picks up Satnam’s pink throw and wraps herself inside, letting it warm her body. The strong sense that neither Luke nor Tash have been quite straight sits with her. Perhaps she too might learn how to lie. Just as she did to the policewoman at the hospital but better, more complete. The time may come when she needs to. Something is shifting inside her. It began six months ago when she stumbled across a secret held inside the pages of the Children’s Book of Greek Myths which Honor had kept on her bookshelf all those years. Back then the understanding woke in her that all the old stories Honor had told her and that she had told herself would require revisiting and that nothing was as it had once seemed.

People lie all the time, Tash had said.

Well isn’t that the truth?

Chapter 17

Cullen

Ratner pokes his head around the door of the Dean’s office. ‘You called?’