‘Why are you so sure it was Max?’

‘She said his name. It was the only thing she said, afterwards. Just his name. And as soon as I saw him the next morning, I knew. I could see it all over his face. He did it. He’s got a temper. She told me before he had a temper, but I had no idea he would do something like this. Can you imagine?’

Rav waited a few minutes, stroking her gently. Then he sat up. ‘You don’t look very well. When I first met you, you had this look about you, this glow. And it’s gone. All that time with Zadie. When did you last eat properly?’

‘We were doing better. She was doing so much better. She was happy.’

‘I’m not talking about Zadie. I’m talking about you.’

Chloe nodded again.

‘Come with me,’ said Rav.

She followed him down the chilly corridor to the bathroom, an ancient one with peach-coloured tiles and a chipped white bath. He ran the water so that the room filled with steam and stole a generous lug of someone else’s bath oil from the shelves next door. Then he undressed Chloe and leaned over the bath, using her flannel to wipe the make-up she hadn’t taken off since the party. He washed her hair with what he told her he had judged to be the most expensive-looking shampoo on the shelf and followed it with conditioner. He said nothing while she quietly sobbed, and when he was finished and she was clean, the water a murky beige, he wrapped her in a towel, led her back to her bedroom and found her some pyjamas which hadn’t been touched since the first week of term. He made a decent stab at drying her hair with a little portable hairdryer and then he told her to get into bed.

‘I should be embarrassed,’ she said sleepily. ‘You’re treating me like a baby.’

‘Sometimes we all need to be looked after,’ he said quietly. The sun had only just gone down. When was the last time she had gone to bed at a sensible time, in her own bed?

Rav stroked her hair. ‘You can stay if you like,’ she whispered. There was no way he could have done all this without expecting something.

‘I’ll stay until you fall asleep, then I’m going back to my room.’

‘You don’t want to sleep with me?’

‘I do. But not like this.’

She drifted into a heavy, irresistible sleep. While Zadie’s loss still thumped in her head, she had to admit that she needed this.