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‘I didn’t say I’d go.’

‘Of course you’d go. This is what I’m trying to make you understand. With a person like Black, you might think he’s your friend, like you’re in it together, when all the time he’s dancing you like a puppet off the edge of a fucking cliff.’

‘ – ’

‘Oh, don’t look at me like that.’ Sophie’s cheeks flushed. ‘You know what I’m talking about, or you would’ve just written back to him without coming to me for – for fucking permission.’

I started to respond but the words didn’t come.

An awkward moment passed.

‘Not a cliff,’ I said quietly.

‘What?’

‘He mainly just told me I was a terrible writer, to be honest. He didn’t dance me off a cliff. He did that to you.’

Sophie stared at me, big bird eyes searching my face for meaning, as if meaning were a frightened mouse seen darting away through the heather. And then – she laughed. It was a tired laugh, a release of tension, an oh-fucking-hell and slumping-into-your-chair sort of a laugh.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said.

‘Oh, Tom. Listen, can you just drop this, please? I’ll sleep better knowing he’s just – gone.’