“This has nothing to do with Kit,” I sigh, pulling off my glasses and running a hand through my hair. Nervous ticks, the psychiatrist told me. Ways of expressing my anxiety. “I’ve telt you a million times, what happened with Kit was unrelated. I really wish you wouldn’t—”

A knock on the door interrupts our conversation, and a low groan escapes me. It’s always like this before I leave. Everyone who comes to me for tinctures and tisanes and charms suddenly starts pounding down my door when they hear I’m leaving the country for a few months, like they just absolutely can’t survive without some shitty, bitter tea.

Holding my hand up to Fadwa to gesture that I’ll finish in a second, I put my glasses back on and cross to the door to yank it open.

A short, stocky black woman I don’t know is stood in the hallway outside my flat, scowling at a piece of paper in her hand. Her mass of curly dark hair flops out of her eyes when she tilts her neck to look up at me, and she squints as her gaze roves over my body. She doesn’t seem pleased by what she sees.

“Are you Thomas Madigan?” Her raspy voice is high, her accent thick and definitely Northern. I nod.

“Aye, that’s me.” Fadwa tries to peer around me, and I push myself further into the gap of the open door to block her. “What do you need?”

The woman in the hall shoves the paper into her pocket, hitches her canvas rucksack higher up on her shoulder, and fixes me with an even look. “I’m hoping you can help me.”

I do my best to survey her in the dimming light let in by the hallway’s dirty skylight. She’s short but not petite, and even still she’s swimming in her clothes. Her jeans are cuffed up at the ankles and shoved into a pair of heavy work boots, her thick jumper sleeves rolled up several times to hit her wrists.

My eyes fall on the rucksack again. She looks like a hitchhiker. Brilliant. People who are new to the city are always a mess, and my life is cluttered enough.

“I’m sorry, but I’m not really available at the moment. There’s another bloke three streets down who might be able to help you, his name is Reid, lives above an O2 shop,” I say, going to close the door.

“Wait,” she exclaims, catching the door with her hand. “Hold on, no—”