‘Okay, you. Time to go home.’ I took it from her hand, and, ignoring her vague protests, squashed it firmly under my foot. ‘I’ll call you a taxi.’

‘But I don’t –’

‘Lily!’

I glanced up. A young man stood across the street, his hands in his jeans pockets, watching us steadily. Lily looked up at him and then away.

‘Who is that?’ I said.

She stared at her feet.

‘Lily. Come here.’ His voice held the surety of possession. He stood, legs slightly apart, as if even at that distance he expected her to obey him. Something made me instantly uneasy.

Nobody moved.

‘Is he your boyfriend? Do you want to talk to him?’ I said quietly.

The first time she spoke I couldn’t make out what she said. I had to lean closer and ask her to repeat herself.

‘Make him go away.’ She closed her eyes, and turned her face towards the door. ‘Please.’

He began to walk across the street towards us. I stood, and tried to make my voice sound as authoritative as possible. ‘You can go now, thanks. Lily’s coming inside with me.’

He stopped halfway across the road.

I held his gaze. ‘You can speak to her some other time. Okay?’

I had my hand on the buzzer, and now muttered at some imaginary, muscular, short-tempered boyfriend. ‘Yeah. Do you want to come down and give me a hand, Dave? Thanks.’

The young man’s expression suggested this was not the last of it. Then he turned, pulled his phone from his pocket and began a low, urgent conversation with someone as he walked away, ignoring the beeping taxi that had to swerve around him, and casting us only the briefest of backwards looks.

I sighed, a little more shakily than I’d expected, put my hands under her armpits and, with not very much elegance and a fair amount of muffled swearing, managed to haul Lily Houghton-Miller into the lobby.

That night she slept at my flat. I couldn’t think what else to do with her. She was sick twice in the bathroom, batting me away when I tried to hold her hair up for her. She refused to give me a home phone number, or maybe couldn’t remember it, and her mobile phone was pin-locked.

I cleaned her up, helped her into a pair of my jogging bottoms and a T-shirt, and led her into the living room. ‘You tidied up!’ she said, with a little exclamation, as if I had done it just for her. I made her drink a glass of water and put her on the sofa in the recovery position, even though I was pretty sure by then that there was nothing left inside her to come out.

As I lifted her head and placed it on the pillow, she opened her eyes, as if recognizing me properly for the first time. ‘Sorry.’ She spoke so quietly that, for a moment, I couldn’t be entirely sure that that was what she had said, and her eyes brimmed briefly with tears.

I covered her with a blanket and watched her as she fell asleep – her pale face, the blue shadows under her eyes, the eyebrows that followed the same curve that Will’s had, the same faint sprinkling of freckles.

Almost as an afterthought I locked the flat door and brought the keys into my bedroom with me, tucking them under my pillow to stop her stealing anything, or simply to stop her leaving, I wasn’t sure. I lay awake, my mind still busy with the sound of the sirens and the airport and the faces of the grieving in the church hall and the hard, knowing stare of the young man across the road, and the knowledge that I had someone who was essentially a stranger sleeping under my roof. And all the while a voice kept saying: What on earth are you doing?

But what else could I have done? Finally, some time after the birds started singing, and the bakery van unloaded its morning delivery downstairs, my thoughts slowed, and stilled, and I fell asleep.

CHAPTER SEVEN

I could smell coffee. It took me several seconds to consider why the smell of coffee might be filtering through my flat, and when the answer registered I sat bolt upright and leaped out of bed, hauling my hoodie over my head.

She was cross-legged on the sofa, smoking, using my one good mug as an ashtray. The television was on – some manic children’s confection of brightly clad, gurning presenters – and two Styrofoam cups sat on the mantelpiece.

‘Oh, hi. That one on the right’s yours,’ she said, turning briefly towards me. ‘I didn’t know what you liked so I got you an Americano.’

I blinked, wrinkling my nose against the cigarette smoke. I crossed the room and opened a window. I looked at the clock. ‘Is that the time?’

‘Yeah. The coffee might be a bit cold. Didn’t know whether to wake you.’

‘It’s my day off,’ I said, reaching for the coffee. It was warm enough. I took a slug gratefully. Then I stared at the cup. ‘Hang on. How did you get these? I locked the front door.’

‘I went down the fire escape,’ she said. ‘I didn’t have any money so I told the guy at the bakery whose flat it was and he said you could bring it in later. Oh, and you also owe him for two bagels with smoked salmon and cream cheese.’

‘I do?’ I wanted to be cross, but I was suddenly really hungry.

She followed my gaze. ‘Oh. I ate those.’ She blew a smoke ring into the centre of the room. ‘You didn’t have anything much in your fridge. You really do need to sort this place out.’

The Lily of this morning was such a different character from the girl I had picked off the street last night that it was hard to believe they were the same person. I walked back into the bedroom to get dressed, listening to her watching television, padding into the kitchen to fetch herself a drink.

‘Hey, thingy … Louise. Could you lend me some money?’ she called out.

‘If it’s to get off your face again, no.’

She walked into my bedroom without knocking. I pulled my sweatshirt up to my chest. ‘And can I stay tonight?’

‘I need to talk to your mum, Lily.’

‘What for?’

‘I need to know a little bit more about what’s actually going on here.’

She stood in the doorway. ‘So you don’t believe me.’

I gestured to her to turn around, so I could finish putting my bra on. ‘I do believe you. But that’s the deal. You want something from me, I need to know a bit more about you first.’

Just as I pulled my T-shirt over my head, she turned back again. ‘Suit yourself. I need to pick up some more clothes anyway.’