Sam lowered his head.

‘Oh, God,’ I said. My hand went to my mouth. ‘Those women …’

‘Not mine.’

We stood there in the middle of the street. Samir was now in the doorway, watching. He had been joined by another of his cousins. To our left everyone at the bus stop turned away when they realized we knew they’d been watching us. Sam nodded at the door behind me. ‘Do you think we could talk about this inside?’

‘Yes. Yes. Oh. No, I can’t,’ I said. ‘I seem to have locked myself out.’

‘Spare key?’

‘In the flat.’

He ran a hand over his face, then checked his watch. He was clearly drained, weary to the bone. I took a step backwards into the doorway. ‘Look – go home and get some rest. We’ll talk tomorrow. I’m sorry.’

The rain suddenly grew heavy, a summer dump, creating torrents in gutters and flooding the street. Across the road Samir and his cousins ducked back inside.

Sam sighed. He looked up at the skies and then straight at me. ‘Hang on.’

Sam took a large screwdriver he had borrowed from Samir and followed me up the fire escape. Twice I slipped on the wet metal and his hand reached out to steady me. When it did, something hot and unexpected shot through me. When we reached my floor, he pushed the screwdriver deep into the hall window frame and started to lever upwards. It gave gratifyingly swiftly.

‘There.’ He wrenched it upwards, supporting it with one hand, and turned to me, motioning me through, his expression faintly disapproving. ‘That was way too easy for a single girl living in this area.’

‘You look nothing like a single girl living in this area.’

‘I’m serious.’

‘I’m fine, Sam.’

‘You don’t see what I see. I want you to be safe.’

I tried to smile, but my knees were trembling, my palms slippery on the iron rail. I made to step past him and staggered slightly.

‘You okay?’

I nodded. He took my arm and half lifted, half helped me climb clumsily into my flat. I slumped down on the carpet by the window, waiting to feel normal again. I hadn’t slept properly for days and felt half dead, as if the fury and adrenalin that had sustained me had all leached away.

Sam climbed in and closed the window behind him, eyeing the broken lock on the top of the sash. The hall was dark, the thrumming of the rain muffled on the roof. As I watched, he rummaged around in his pocket until, among other detritus, he picked out a small nail. He took the screwdriver and used the handle to knock the nail in at an angle to stop anyone opening it from outside. Then he walked heavily over to where I was sitting, and held out a hand.

‘Benefits of being a part-time housebuilder. There’s always a nail somewhere. ‘C’mon,’ he said. ‘If you sit there you’ll never get up.’

His hair was flattened from the rain, his skin glistening in the hall light, as I let him pull me to my feet. I winced, and he saw.

‘Hip?’

I nodded.

He sighed. ‘I wish you’d talk to me.’ The skin beneath his eyes was mauve with exhaustion. There were two long scratches on the back of his left hand. I wondered what had happened the previous night. He disappeared into the kitchen and I heard running water. When he came back he was holding two pills and a cup. ‘I shouldn’t really be giving you these. But they’ll give you a pain-free night.’

I took them gratefully. He watched me as I swallowed them.

‘Do you ever follow rules?’

‘When I think they’re sensible.’ He took the cup from me. ‘So are we good, Louisa Clark?’

I nodded.

He let out a long breath. ‘I’ll call you tomorrow.’

Afterwards, I wasn’t sure what made me do it. My hand reached out and took his. I felt his fingers close slowly around mine. ‘Don’t go. It’s late. And motorbikes are dangerous.’

I took the screwdriver from his other hand, and let it fall onto the carpet. He looked at me for the longest time, then slid a hand over his face. ‘I don’t think I’m good for much just now.’

‘Then I promise not to use you for sexual gratification.’ I kept my eyes on his. ‘This time.’

His smile was slow to come, but when it did, everything fell away from me, as if I had been carrying a weight I hadn’t known.

You never know what will happen when you fall from a great height.

He stepped over the screwdriver, and I led him silently towards my bedroom.

I lay in the dark in my little flat, my leg slung over the bulk of a sleeping man, his arm pinning me pleasurably beneath it, and gazed at his face.

– Fatal cardiac arrest, motorbike accident, suicidal teenager and a gang-related stabbing on the Peabody Estate. Some shifts are just a bit …

– Sssh. It’s okay. Sleep.

He had barely managed to get his uniform off. He had stripped to his T-shirt and shorts, kissed me, then closed his eyes and collapsed into a dead slumber. I had wondered whether I should cook him something, or tidy the flat so that when he woke I might look like someone who actually had a handle on life. But instead I undressed to my underwear and slid in next to him. For these few moments I just wanted to be beside him, my bare skin against his T-shirt, my breath mingling with his. I lay listening to his breathing, marvelling at how someone could be so still. I studied the slight bump on the bridge of his nose, the variation in the shade of the bristles that shadowed his chin, the slight curl at the end of his dark, dark eyelashes. I ran through conversations we had had, putting them through a new filter, one that pitched him as a single man, an affectionate uncle, and I wanted to laugh with the idiocy of it all, and cringe at my mistake.