Left alone, Justin braved the rain and cold at all hours of day and night, combing the neighbourhood for Boy. He rang Agnes from every phone box he passed, spouting incoherent cosmic conspiracy theories until she stopped answering. Then he left messages.

‘I’ve notified all the dog shelters, the police, the army,’ he told the answerphone in a voice ragged with anguish. ‘If I had a photo I could put posters up, but it won’t do any good if he’s been murdered. Do you think he’s been murdered? Agnes? Are you there? Pick up the phone!’ Then he set off again, whistling for Boy. His feet splashed across uneven tarmac, through oily puddles, the monotonous sameness of suburban sprawl distracting him not at all from the buzzing panic in his brain.

Agnes tried telling herself he would come to terms with the tragedy, would return, with time, to something like normal. If only he would go home, go back to school, forget about his stupid dog. Especially that.

When she put her key in the door, she did it silently, hoping he’d be asleep. We can’t go on like this, she thought, slipping into bed, relieved and guilty at his absence. He’s a mess. He needs help. I’ll go mad.

She was fast asleep by the time he returned. Out of consideration, he knocked softly. Then leant on the bell.

She came eventually, wrapped in a short silk robe. Even straight out of bed her hair lay glossy and smooth against her head. He wanted to touch it. She looked regal, like a Japanese princess.

‘Come in, Justin.’ She yawned.

‘I can’t find him.’

‘I gathered that. You’re soaked. Have you eaten anything today?’

Justin shook his head and looked at the clock. Four forty-one. No wonder it was so dark.

She fetched him a towel. ‘I’ll put some clothes on. The café opens at five.’

Agnes led him down the street. It was cold and his coat was sodden. They entered the little café and she greeted the waitress on duty. The place was already crowded with people on their way home from clubs; it smelled of sausage and beans and grease and sweat. The windows were opaque with steam. They squeezed into a cramped booth in the corner, and Agnes ordered tea and a full English breakfast for them both. She hung his wet coat on a hook and passed him her scarf, which he wrapped around his neck and shoulders, grateful for the warmth.

‘I don’t need to ask how you are,’ she said. ‘I can see for myself.’

He sipped his tea, hands curled round the mug, face buried in the steam.

‘You haven’t talked to anyone today?’

‘Only you.’

‘Have you phoned your parents? What about school? Have you told anyone at all?’

He shook his head.

Their breakfast arrived, and he pushed the beans around his plate with a knife.

‘Maybe you should see a doctor.’

‘Fate is trying to kill me. I miss my dog. What’s a doctor going to say? “You’re not ill, you’re mad as a muffin”? They’ll either lock me up or tell me to get a grip and no one will believe the truth anyway.’

‘What exactly is the truth?’

He said nothing.

‘Justin?’ Agnes sighed, taking his hand and speaking to him gently. ‘It is horrible. I can’t stop thinking about all the blood, seeing it, and the screaming people. I can’t stand loud noises, they make me jump out of my skin. I’m terrified of crowds. But I don’t feel responsible. We just happened to be there, along with a thousand other people.’

‘That’s your truth. Mine’s different.’ He pulled his hand back and immediately wished he hadn’t. ‘At least you were there, Agnes. At least you saw it happen, you know I didn’t imagine it. The plane landed exactly where I was standing three minutes earlier. I didn’t imagine that, did I?’ His voice was pleading.

‘No, you didn’t. It’s just hard for me to think of it as…’ She paused. ‘As anything other than a monstrous coincidence.’

Justin scanned her face, desperate to define the experience in a way that included them both. ‘Maybe it doesn’t make any difference how you think of it.’

‘Oh, Justin.’ She looked back at him, defeated. ‘Don’t you see? It makes all the difference in the world.’

She called for the bill, paid it, and they walked home together in the grey dawn. Agnes stopped at the front door to pull off her shoes. By the time she entered the flat, he was lying curled up on her bed, asleep.

She covered him with a blanket.

A few hours later, Justin stirred. He blinked open his eyes and found Agnes sitting next to him.

She looked down, her face kind. ‘Hello.’

Her voice sent a thousand volts of electricity through him, turned him one-dimensional with need.

‘Are you feeling any better?’

He couldn’t think and he couldn’t help himself. He reached up and kissed her, kissed her so unselfconsciously and with so much purity of intent that she put her better instincts on hold and kissed him back.

He’s very nice like this, Agnes thought.

Instead of falling asleep, he stared and stared at her as if she were all he required till the end of time.

It was flattering to be stared at that way.

And then he buried his head in her arms and cried, told her how amazing she was, how kind, how generous, how wise. He clung to her as the oxygen in the room grew thin, depleted by too many intakes of breath and outpourings of love. She needed to get up, run away, escape his overpowering need and the knowledge that she had done something she wished she hadn’t.