She looked at Max. At Rav. Back to Max. She could smell the vomit from the flowerpot behind her. The light was glinting off Max’s glass of wine. A plane whined overhead. What did she do now? Where did she go? How was it possible for a life that she had lived for so long, so easily, to be smashed up, broken, annihilated like this, in a matter of minutes?

Max got to his feet. ‘I think I’ll be off. Rav, I’ll see you next week.’

She watched him go inside, pull an expensive jacket over his pale blue shirt and close the door behind him. He would presumably get a car back to south-west London. Sit in the garden with a glass of wine. Talk to Verity about work. Keep moving, keep living, keep everything just exactly the same as it had always been. Chloe dropped her head into her hands, looking at the dusty patio between her fingers.

‘What now?’ Rav asked, eventually.

‘I don’t know,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t know.’

30

Then

When she woke the next morning the first thing Chloe thought of was Zadie. Sometimes she needed a moment to remember where she was, what was happening, why she was worrying. But today, it came back before she’d even opened her eyes. She turned to the side of the bed, but Zadie was gone. Trying to breathe calmly, she got up, pulled on a pair of jeans and a jumper and went down to the second floor. She knocked on Max’s bedroom door and it swung open. Zadie’s make-up was strewn over the bedside table. Her robe was slung over a chair. Max was lying in bed, snoring gently. She closed the door and went down to the breakfast room. A couple of last night’s waitresses were back, setting up breakfast. ‘Have you seen a girl down here? Tall, blonde hair, pretty?’

One of them shook her head. ‘You’re the first down. Did you want a cup of tea, or a coffee?’ Chloe shook her head, unconcerned about being rude. She went back upstairs and shook Max awake.

‘Max, where’s Zadie?’

He opened his eyes blearily and gestured towards a glass of water on his bedside table. She didn’t pass it to him.

‘Zadie. Where is she?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘When did you last see her?’

He ran his hands through his hair then stretched his arms wide open. ‘I don’t know. Last night. Before the game? During the game? I don’t really remember much.’ He grinned. ‘Did you have fun?’

‘I found Zadie lying on the floor last night. Covered in bruises. Her lip was bleeding.’

Max looked confused. ‘In here? Had she fallen over?’

‘No, she hadn’t fallen over, someone had beaten the living shit out of her.’

‘I don’t think that’s possible, Chloe.’

He never called her Chloe. Always Coco.