follow them. It isn’t far to Midsummer Common and it isn’t particularly late when they arrive. The sky is still the indigo of a summer evening and they can hear shouts and laughter nearby. As they approach the row of cottages Joe has a sense of standing at a fork in the road.
‘I should get back,’ he says when she opens her front door.
She turns and faces him. ‘I won’t see you again. Ten more minutes? I want to ask you something.’
He knows that she has had all evening to ask him anything she wants, but he doesn’t argue. The brandy bottle and glasses are ready on her kitchen island. He says nothing as she pours, nothing as she kicks off her shoes and climbs onto the stool facing him.
‘What did you want to ask me?’
She glances down to the place on his abdomen where his scar is. ‘Will you tell me what happened to you?’
‘Why?’
‘Because I think you’re damaged,’ she says. ‘And yet you cope so well. I want to know how you do it.’
Since they’ve been inside her house, she has changed again, reverted back to the Felicity he feels more comfortable with, and this gives him enough reassurance. He lifts his glass and swirls the cognac around, brings it to his nose but still doesn’t drink. He catches her watching him warily and wonders if she is playing him, again.
‘There was a girl,’ he says at last. ‘She lived on the streets. I was never very sure how old she was, late teens at most. She looked young. She looked like someone who would always be the victim, someone easy to bully and pick on. She was tiny, and very thin. The sort of girl who wouldn’t stand up to a strong breeze.’
He is drinking now. He takes a large sip, then another.
‘How did you come across her?’ Felicity asks.
‘I think I mentioned that I work with the homeless,’ he says. ‘It’s supposed to be therapy, but most of them either won’t or can’t commit to regular sessions. I’m just someone to talk to. Anyway, she approached me on the common one night and we talked. She told me about how her mother had remarried a man who was abusive. She’d left home, in fear of her life. To be honest, I don’t know to this day whether that was true or not.’
Felicity lets the brandy moisten her lips and waits.
‘Her name was Ezzy Sheeran,’ he says. ‘That part is true. Mum tracked her family down later. Her mother said she’d always been a difficult child. Her stepfather seemed like a decent bloke. As I say, who knows?’
Felicity does not take her eyes off him.
‘She became fixated on me.’ Joe is struggling to look at her now. ‘She started turning up at the house, ringing the doorbell, expecting to be let in. She waited for me to finish my pro bono sessions at the church hall and followed me home. When I told her it had to stop, she became angry. Accused me of dumping her for another woman. It was make-believe. I’d only recently separated from my wife and I wasn’t seeing anyone but she wouldn’t listen to reason.’
Talking about Ezzy is always so hard. Sitting still suddenly feels impossible and he gets up. Once on his feet, he has no idea what to do so leans awkwardly against the worktop.
‘She filed complaints against me with the police, claiming I’d forced her into having sex with me, which was complete nonsense.’ He is no longer looking at Felicity. ‘The police took her seriously, although they were fair to me for Mum’s sake. Anyway, her stories didn’t add up. She’d name dates when I could prove I was somewhere else. She claimed she’d been inside my flat, but she couldn’t describe any of it.’
‘This couldn’t have helped you professionally,’ Felicity says.
He shrugs. ‘It happens. The profession has protocols and I’d followed them. It wasn’t pleasant, either for me or for Mum, but I thought it would blow over.’
‘I’m guessing it didn’t.’
Leaning against the counter feels ridiculous. Joe sits down again.
‘She started hanging around the family house. When I was married, we lived on that new development at Trumpington Meadows and Sarah and the kids are still there. At that point, it got serious. A woman on her own, two young kids in the house. And Ezzy lurking outside, doing stunts, trying to lure the kids out.’
‘Stunts?’
‘She was an exceptionally good roller-skater. Professional standard. I don’t think I