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“Oh.” I didn’t know what else to say, especially given that Elizabeth seemed almost amused by it. Amused or maybe intrigued—I wasn’t sure what the little uplift of her lips signified.

Bollocks, now I was staring at her mouth. Had she noticed? I stood up before she did, shoving my hands in my pockets and fixing my eyes firmly on hers and nowhere else. “It was you who comforted her. Thank you for stepping in.”

“No problem. Oh—excuse me.”

Her phone had started ringing, and I was mildly surprised when she took it out of her pocket, given that we were in the middle of a conversation.

Colour flared on her cheekbones as she began gesturing between the phone and the door. “Sorry, I need to take this.”

“A friend?” I asked. I shouldn’t have—it was none of my business—but I couldn’t refrain.

“No, it’s—” A look of panic passed over her face before she corrected herself. “Yes, a friend.” She was speaking quietly but urgently into the phone before she was even out of the door.

I watched her go, distrust souring every good feeling I’d had towards her in the last few minutes. Because I’d seen very clearly that her caller’s name had been “Kev,” and nobody got that jittery or secretive over a phone call from a friend. She was clearly lying about something.

I wanted to believe that Elizabeth wasn’t going to hurt my friend, I really did, but every time I convinced myself of it, something new cropped up to make me suspicious. First Billy, now Kev. Precisely how many men was she furtively communicating with behind Bingley’s back?

11

ELIZABETH

I got off the train at Hornsey at nine fifteen the next morning and pulled my hood up as I walked along the platform. It was a grim day for walking anywhere, a constant haze of drizzle hanging in the chilly grey air, but I didn’t know what bus to get, and Google Maps was telling me it was a manageable fifteen-minute walk, so I figured I might as well head there on foot.

I’d emailed Don to tell him I was feeling ill and wouldn’t be in work today. He was good about it, given how busy we were, but I felt bad about fibbing. It was a risk, too, because if Bingley found out I’d taken a sickie, he’d definitely ask Jane about it, and then I’d have to lie to her about where I’d been. Not that I wasn’t already doing that, but lying by omission felt marginally less reprehensible than telling her a whopper to her face.

The thing was that Kev hardly ever asked for my help, and when he did, it meant things were really bad. It was why I had him on emergency bypass on my phone; that way, I never missed a call from him. I wasn’t overly shocked, therefore, when I arrived at the address he’d texted me to find that it was essentially a demolition site surrounding a huge, mostly boarded-up squat. It might have been an office block in its day, but it was derelict now, daubed in graffiti tags and encircled by a perimeter of old construction fencing, brambles, and industrial waste. My heart about sank into my boots.

Kev had warned me not to go in without him, and I wouldn’t—getting murdered was not on my to-do list for the day. But I got a little closer, torturing myself with every new sign of desolation my eyes settled on. I couldn’t believe it had come to this. He had accommodation. How had he ended up here?

“Hey, kid.”

I turned at Kev’s voice, relaxing a little to see him walking towards me from the road. Kev was a giant of a man in his early sixties with a large belly, a larger smile, and a thick curly beard that reached down to his chest. He was also one of the gentlest people I knew, and he couldn’t hide the pity in his eyes as he approached me.

“Hi, Kev. This is so good of you. Did you have to take time off work?”

“Yeah, but don’t worry. It’s all part of being a sponsor. My employer’s cool with it.”

“Okay, thank you.” I nodded at the building. “He’s in there?”

“Yep. I’ve tried to persuade him to leave, but he won’t budge.”

I took a deep breath. “Not sure I’ll have any more luck, but I suppose we won’t know until we try.”

I huffed a sad laugh as we picked our way across the scrubland, thinking of my Sunday afternoon in the Duck and Decoy, where the Brambles had been considerably more enjoyable than the thorns blocking our path here.

“Be careful what you touch once we get in there too,” Kev warned me. “Might be sharps lying around.”

I stared at him in horror. “He’s not using?”

“No, no, no. But others are. Just watch yourself.”

It was miserable inside—dingy, stale, and devoid of all human comfort. Colder than it was outside. The walls, mottled with mould and more graffiti, glistened with moisture; the floor was littered with rubbish.

I tried not to pay too much attention to the other people, and most of them ignored us as we passed, too wasted or too depressed to react to newcomers. A few asked for money, one mumbled a toothless threat, and two shouted lewd comments. But no one came near with Kev looming at my side.

We found him on the third floor, slumped beneath a window on a stained mattress. His eyes were closed, and his hands were knitted together over his stomach like when he used to fall asleep in his favourite armchair in front of the TV. Before the TV was taken. And then the chair. He was wearing two coats, neither of which were his, and his old corduroy trousers, now a threadbare remnant of a past none of us would ever get back.

I knelt beside him, grimacing at the smell. “Dad?”