Clare laid a reassuring hand on her arm. ‘It’s fine, Melia. If he’s offering, this chosen one will have another glass of Pinot Grigio.’

While I admired her for the way she’d recovered herself, I suddenly felt a far simpler emotion than any other so far that evening: sadness. Sadness for the circularity of our association with the Ropers. As a foursome, we seemed to have returned to where we’d started, at the subject of Clare’s house, but what had begun with a joyous dinner hosted in its rooms seemed to be ending with so much bitterness she’d be forgiven for fearing a brick through her window or a lit match through the letterbox.

Unsurprisingly, she left after that next glass, insisting I stay, but two tetchy rounds later, Melia and I followed. Normally, we avoided leaving on our own together, but Kit was determined to stay out, his eyes already scanning the bar for likely playmates as we said our farewells.

So long as we didn’t touch, it was no risk for me to walk her home to Tiding Street. Instead, we drew as close as was decent and spoke in low voices about Kit, what was wrong with him, how his urges might be reined in before he said something that really got him into trouble. Though it wasn’t late, their neighbours’ windows were mostly dark and I wondered what they made of the Ropers, with their partying and histrionics.

I waited, shuffling my feet, as Melia found her keys.

‘Come up,’ she murmured into my neck.

‘I can’t, darling.’

‘I like you calling me that. Please come up. Just for a few minutes.’

‘No. Kit could come back any time.’

‘Killjoy.’

‘I know, but it’s for selfish reasons, believe me. I don’t want it to end tonight.’

‘I don’t want it to end ever,’ Melia said, and even in the face of her inebriation – and my own – I allowed my vanity to accept her tribute as nothing more than I deserved.

*

As I let myself back into Prospect Square, Clare watched me with a thunderous expression from the sitting-room window. I strode towards her, tripping on the curled edge of a rug, which worsened my own mood, and the row erupted the moment she turned to face me.

‘What the hell’s going on?’

I didn’t quite meet her eye. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Something’s going on. For you to tell Kit you’re a – what was it? – a “glorified lodger”? You know that’s nonsense.’

‘I didn’t use that term, he did. Just forget it, you know what he’s like.’ Through the old glass behind her, the square was a still life in a hundred shades of black, the streetlamps casting a thin amber light onto the tips of the railings.

‘Look at me, Jamie. This is the second time I’ve asked you what’s wrong and I’m not sure I can keep on asking. If you can’t tell me, who can you tell?’

It was an excellent question – Clare’s were, as a rule – but I had no intention of giving an honest answer. I did look at her, though. Her eyes were glistening with hurt, lids drooping with fatigue.

‘I’m just worried about him,’ I said, feebly.

‘Who? Are we still talking about Kit? I’ve heard enough about him to last me a lifetime.’

I knew the feeling.

‘Well, if that’s really it, you’re on your own. Far be it from me to interfere in your friendships.’

She’d withdrawn into pomposity, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t upset and confused. ‘You don’t consider him a friend of yours anymore?’

She gestured, hands upturned. ‘I consider him Melia’s problem – and I don’t know why you persist in making him yours.’

The clarity of her assessment took my breath away. All those evenings with our younger, wilder counterparts that had ended with our good-natured discussion of them: they were over now. What had been implied in the bar was categorical: Clare considered herself the only responsible adult left standing. And maybe I did, too.

*

Towards the end of November, Melia paid her only visit to the Comfort Zone. It was three o’clock and Regan was on her break when a tour party descended in search of a mid-afternoon lunch. Melia, off work that afternoon, playfully offered to help me out. ‘Go on, I’ve done loads of café work. I bet I can work that monster on my own.’ And before I knew it, she was behind the counter and standing in front of the shiny chrome coffee machine.

I knew it would be a health and safety breach if she so much as touched it. ‘Don’t, you need training for that. But you can do these sandwich orders, if you like? The fillings are in Tupperware in the fridge.’

For forty-five minutes we worked in harmony and then, with a glance at her phone, she prepared to leave as suddenly as she’d arrived. ‘We should think about running a place together. It’d be fun.’

I felt the surge of pleasure I always did when we spoke of our having a future together. After Kit, after Clare. After this. She flashed me a wicked smile and patted the tote bag at her hip. ‘Aren’t you going to check I haven’t stolen from the till? I am a known debtor.’

‘I trust you.’ I smirked. ‘Tell you what, when we divvy up the tips, I’ll save my share for you.’

She kissed me goodbye on the lips and a departing customer sent a curious backwards look. How did he get her? He must have some hidden talent . . .

After she’d gone and Regan had returned, I felt a strange, elevated mood, almost fanciful, as if I’d imagined the whole thing.

24

27 December 2019

You can lead a detective to water, but you can’t make him drink.

Having recorded my drugs intelligence in his notebook in frustratingly scant detail, Parry insists on leading me to water, back to the river and the water rats’ Christmas drinks.

‘If you’d stopped getting on so well, why go for drinks?’ he demands and I feel a painful pressure building in my chest. We are reaching our conclusion. This is the part of the story that matters.

‘We hadn’t stopped getting on, not really, it just wasn’t the same.’

‘Whose idea were the drinks?’

‘I don’t remember. Kit’s, I think.’

‘You’re sure it wasn’t yours?’

I shrug.

‘How long in advance was the date planned?’

‘I remember it as being pretty spontaneous. Look, if organizing Christmas drinks is your idea of foul play, you’re going to be working a lot of overtime this month.’

But I know exactly what he’s getting at: premeditated behaviour. Malice aforethought. For the first time in this encounter, I challenge them to spell this shit out: ‘So you think I had something to do with his disappearance, do you?’

‘You tell us,’ Parry answers, inevitably.

‘That would be a good slogan for the Met: You tell us.’ I decide it’s time to take this interview by the scruff of the neck and show my winning card, if you’ll excuse the run of clichés. After all, it’s not as if they won’t see it soon enough when they requisition my – and Kit’s – phone records. ‘I know you’ll be checking the cameras on the route, but I want to show you something that proves I couldn’t have seen him after we got off the boat.’ I pick up my phone and display my last text to Kit.