‘I know you’re very capable and competent, if that’s what you’re asking.’ All the same, Honor thinks, it was you who asked to meet. Besides which, I do need to be here. I need it very much. ‘I’ve got paid work here now though, a refurb on a boat down in the Floating Harbour. It’ll take a couple of months.’ Honor picks up her coffee and drains what remains in order not to have to look at her daughter. The work is not paid and is unlikely to take as long as she has said. It has always been so hard to lie to Nevis precisely because it has always been so easy.

‘But you’re not going to want to come round all the time, are you?’

The sting is small and teenager-shaped but painful still. Honor says, ‘Of course not, but you can come to the boat whenever you like. There are two bedrooms.’

Nevis has stopped listening, her face turning inward, the colour drained out, the strain apparent in a tightness around the eyes, a pulse at the jawline. ‘Everyone at Avon’s talking about it. It’s all over the university chat rooms and on social. Everyone knows I was there on the bridge. I go into the library, students I don’t even know pass me messages. What if people start to say I could have stopped her?’

So here it was, the reason she had got in touch. Part of her was still a kid in need of a mother’s reassurance.

‘Have you spoken to student welfare so they can put a stop to that stuff?’

‘They’re useless.’

‘Someone else at uni then?’

‘I’m speaking to you about it.’

Honor sinks back, despondent. What she hears is that she has failed, that there are other, better mothers out there, who would have been more suited, who would have known how to deal with this, and that in spite of this, she’s got the part, because no one else showed up to the audition.

‘Social media isn’t your friend and the people who are doing the gossiping aren’t your friends either.’ She wonders why the university is letting this pass.

‘I only have one friend.’

‘You have me.’

Nevis falls silent, considering this a moment. ‘I found something I want to show you.’ She removes some printed paper from her daypack and puts it on the table. Honor reaches for it, turns it over in her hand, scanning the pages. ‘Satnam’s essay on data integration in bioinformatics.’

‘Is it one of the ones you helped her with?’

Nevis shakes her head. ‘No, she never asks me to help any more, not even with the maths. She only finished this one a couple of weeks ago. I found it under her bed.’

‘Oh.’ Honor is unsure where this is going.