For the next two days I found myself returning to the rooftop, like someone worrying a loose tooth. I watered the plants, feeling a creeping, residual guilt. I walked around the glowing blooms, imagining her stolen hours up there, how she must have carried bags of compost and terracotta pots up the fire escape in the hours I was at work. But every time I thought back to how we had been together, I still went around in circles. What could I have done? I couldn’t make the Traynors accept her in the way she needed to be accepted. I couldn’t make her happier. And the one person who might have been able to was gone.

There was a motorbike parked outside my block. I locked the car and limped across the road to get a carton of milk after my shift, exhausted. It was spitting, and I put my head down against the rain. When I looked up, I saw a familiar uniform standing in the entrance to my block, and my heart lurched.

I walked back across the road straight past him, fumbling in my bag for my keys. Why did fingers always turn into cocktail sausages at moments of stress?

‘Louisa.’

The keys refused to appear. I riffled through my bag a second time, dropping a comb, bits of tissue, loose change, and cursing. I patted my pockets, trying to work out where they might be.

‘Louisa.’

Then, with a sickening drop of my stomach, I remembered where they were: in the pocket of the jeans I had changed out of just before leaving for work. Oh, great.

‘Really? You’re just going to ignore me? This is how we’re doing this?’

I took a deep breath, and turned to him, straightening my shoulders a little. ‘Sam.’

He looked tired too, his chin greyed with stubble. Probably just off a shift. It was unwise to notice these things. I focused on a point a little left of his shoulder.

‘Can we talk?’

‘I’m not sure there’s any point.’

‘No point?’

‘I got the message, okay? I’m not even sure why you’re here.’

‘I’m here because I’ve just finished a crappy sixteen hour shift and I dropped Donna off up the road and I thought I might as well try to see you and work out what happened with us. Because I sure as hell don’t have a clue.’

‘Really?’

‘Really.’

We glared at each other. Why had I not seen before how abrasive he was? How unpleasant. I couldn’t understand how I had been so blinded by lust for this man when every part of me now wanted to walk away from him. I made one last futile search for my keys and fought the urge to kick the door.

‘So, are you at least going to give me a clue? I’m tired, Louisa, and I don’t like playing games.’

‘You don’t like playing games.’ The words emerged in a bitter little laugh.

He took a breath. ‘Okay. One thing. One thing and I’ll go. I just want to know why you won’t return my calls.’

I looked at him in disbelief. ‘Because I’m many things, but I’m not a complete idiot. I mean I must have been – I saw the warning signs, and I ignored them – but, basically, I haven’t returned your calls because you’re an utter, utter knob. Okay?’

I stooped to pick up my things that had fallen on the ground, feeling my whole body heat rapidly, as if my internal thermostat had suddenly gone haywire. ‘Oh, you’re so good, you know? So bloody good. If it weren’t all so sick and pathetic I’d actually be quite impressed by you.’ I straightened up, zipping my bag. ‘Look at Sam, the good father. So caring, so intuitive. And yet what’s really going on? You’re so busy shagging your way through half of London you don’t even notice that your own son is unhappy.’

‘My son.’

‘Yes! Because we actually listen to him, you see. I mean, we’re not meant to tell outsiders what goes on in the group. And he won’t tell you because he’s a teenager. But he’s miserable, not just for the loss of his mum but because you’re busy swallowing your own grief by having an entire army of women traipse in and out of your bed.’

I was shouting now, my words tumbling over each other, my hands waving. I could see Samir and his cousin staring at me through the window of the shop. I didn’t care. This might be the last time I ever got to say my piece.

‘And, yes, yes, I know, I was stupid enough to be one of those women. So for him, and from me, you’re a knob. And that’s why I don’t want to talk to you right now. Or ever, actually.’

He rubbed at his hair. ‘Are we still talking about Jake?’

‘Of course I’m talking about Jake. How many other sons have you got?’

‘Jake isn’t my son.’

I stared at him.

‘Jake is my sister’s son. Was,’ he corrected himself. ‘He’s my nephew.’

These words took several seconds to filter into a form I could understand. Sam was gazing at me intently, his brow furrowed as if he, too, were trying to keep up.

‘But – but you pick him up. He lives with you.’

‘I pick him up on Mondays because his dad works shifts. And he stays with me sometimes, yes. He doesn’t live with me.’

‘Jake’s … not your son?’

‘I don’t have any children. That I’m aware of. Though the whole Lily thing does make you wonder.’

I pictured him hugging Jake, mentally rewound half a dozen conversations. ‘But I saw him when we first met. And when you and I were talking he rolled his eyes, like …’