Chapter Twenty-Nine

Cassie gave him the lion's share of the pizza, and after eating, they sat there drinking beer. The cooker had warmed the place up, the TCP had left a not-unpleasant medicinal sweetness in the air, and the fairy lights strung from the ceiling completed the cosy vibe. She'd had to take them down when Archie lived here: they kept getting tangled in his barnet.

She pictured the image he'd sent her earlier: a tranquil view over a wooded valley in Wiltshire, with the accompanying message: We could have woken up to this every day . And her reply: Where's the kebab truck though? Keeping it light to quell the vertiginous feeling that still gripped her now and again.

Have I done the right thing ?

‘You all right?' asked Ethan, scanning her face, his eyes crinkled with worry.

‘Yeah fine' – shaking her head to dispel the melancholia. ‘So have you been getting a lot of this kind of shit since .?.?.?'

He pulled a rueful smile but dropped his gaze. ‘Yeah. And the band haven't had any bookings for a bit. They're playing with a stand-in guitarist this weekend. I can't blame them – there's too much heat around me. Nobody wants a bunch of paps turning up, annoying the punters.'

‘Do you miss it?'

‘Like you might miss breathing,' he said with a sudden flare of passion.

His Bronte connection aside, Ethan's band was just one of the dozens of indie rock bands scraping a living playing at pubs and Camden's smaller venues. Still, a passion was a passion. She stood to retrieve a bottle of Polish vodka from the freezer compartment and poured a couple of shots.

‘Can I ask you something, about Bronte?' she asked.

‘Sure.' But she'd picked up the guarded look that had flickered across his face.

‘What was her relationship like with Melodik? Did she have any serious fallings-out with anyone specific there? Anyone who might have visited her at the flat?'

He took a swig of beer from the bottle, giving the question some thought. ‘Not as far as I know. She had a few screaming rows with her A and just like the heroin, she really shouldn't go there.