‘Stay.’ Davy wrapped his arm round her to prevent her moving.

‘I’d say,’ went on Dario, his voice growing stronger, ‘that she’s poison. Poison. Everything was all right before she came. We were happy. She’s like a nasty, toxic stain seeping over everything.’

‘Miles?’ said Pippa. ‘Are you going to say anything?’

Miles shifted uncomfortably, still not lifting his head. ‘What do you want me to say? It’s very unfortunate but -’

‘Do you really think everything was all right before I came on the scene?’ said Leah. Her eyes were bright. I wondered if she was almost enjoying herself.

‘Don’t ask her what she means,’ I was starting to say, but Davy got there first.

‘What do you mean?’ he asked.

‘Well, look at you all,’ said Leah. ‘There’s you, Dario. How old are you? Thirty? Older? You don’t have a job. You don’t have a relationship. You don’t have any ambitions. As far as I know, you have no real qualifications, except for being a petty criminal, and you’re not even very good at that.’

Dario spluttered and his freckled face turned an unlovely red.

‘Then there’s Mick.’ She gave a mirthless laugh. ‘Would you describe him as a fully functional member of society?’

‘Leave Mick out of it,’ said Davy, unexpectedly assertive. ‘He’s not here to answer back.’

You, then, Davy. What’s the point of you?’

‘That’s not fair,’ said Mel, her face flushing.

‘And look at Astrid.’

‘Look at me instead,’ said Owen, and she swung her gaze to him. I saw their eyes locked and for a moment her expression grew speculative. Leah loved beautiful things. ‘And now listen,’ he continued.

‘I’m listening.’ She folded her arms.

‘You’re a bully and you’re not welcome here.’

‘I don’t think that’s for you to say, is it?’

‘You’re not welcome.’

‘Miles?’ said Pippa. ‘Are you just going to sit there?’

‘I only want…’ he started miserably, but stopped as Mick came into the room, still in his jacket, eating fish and chips out of a brown-paper bag.

‘You are, aren’t you?’ Pippa continued. ‘Right, speaking as a lawyer, I’d like to say this first. Negotiations are off.’

‘What?’ asked Mick, a chip half-way to his open mouth, his eyes bulging.

‘Off,’ said Dario, banging his fist on the table. ‘Yup. Off.’

‘Have I missed something?’ said Mick.

‘Pippa,’ said Miles, pleadingly, ‘don’t react like this. We had an agreement and it was in everyone’s interests.’

‘I don’t see what all the fuss is about,’ said Leah, calmly. ‘I told the detective chief inspector what he needed to know. This is a murder inquiry, you know, and you’re all behaving as if you’re sitting at the back of a classroom. You’re not at school, guys – this is real life.’

This was uncomfortably close to my own attitude. And she wasn’t entirely wrong about Dario. And I sometimes felt as if Mick and Davy were people I’d run into on a railway platform while they were waiting to change trains. I thought I ought to say something but couldn’t think exactly what. My contribution wasn’t missed, though. Dario was angrily shouting that he wouldn’t continue with his work on the house.

‘I don’t think that’s a great loss,’ said Leah.

‘You haven’t seen what I’ve started to do to your en-suite bathroom this evening,’ said Dario, ‘have you?’

‘No.’

‘I was working on it when that inspector-person arrived. There’s no lavatory in there.’ He sniggered. ‘Just a big hole. And the plumbing’s turned off.’

‘Dario,’ said Miles, ‘don’t be ridiculous.’

‘Oi!’ said Mick. ‘Can anyone hear me? Or maybe I’m simply dreaming.’ He pinched his cheek exaggeratedly. I watched, fascinated, as a red mark blossomed between his fingers, but he didn’t seem to feel the pain. ‘Nope, not dreaming.’

‘We’re not doing anything else, either,’ said Dario. ‘Not a thing. Look.’ He picked up a can and tipped out the remaining beer into a puddle on the floor. ‘I’m not cleaning that up,’ he said triumphantly.

‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ snapped Leah, ‘don’t be such a baby.’

‘Or this,’ said Dario, and turned an overflowing ashtray upside-down.

Leah scraped her chair violently back, stood up and strode from the room.

‘Here, who wants some?’ asked Owen, laconically, holding out a jumbo-sized joint.

‘Me,’ said Dario.

‘She never said what was wrong with me,’ said Pippa. ‘Pity.’

The door opened and Leah’s voice came through it: ‘You behave like a slag.’

Two red spots appeared on Pippa’s cheeks, but she laughed lightly. ‘Thank God for feminism and the pill,’ she said.

Davy stood up quietly, kissed the top of Mel’s head, then fetched a cloth from the sink and started mopping up Dario’s spilt beer.

‘Miles,’ I said.

‘Yeah.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘Do?’

‘We can’t live like this.’

‘It’ll die down.’

‘You think?’ asked Pippa scornfully. ‘You mean, if we all pretend nothing happened then we can go back to the way things were before Leah betrayed us.’

‘We have to deal with this,’ I continued.

‘We’ll have no-go areas,’ said Dario.

He rushed from the room and we watched him go in bewilderment.

‘He’s very upset,’ said Davy, rinsing the cloth in the sink, then drying his hands. ‘It’s -’

‘Don’t,’ I said.

‘Don’t what?’ said Davy, puzzled.

‘Don’t say it’ll be all right. That we can talk it over.’

While Davy looked disappointed, Dario reappeared, carrying a pot of paint in one hand and a large paintbrush in the other. He dumped them on the floor just inside the door and levered off the lid. The paint inside was a deep green.

‘What?’ said Miles, as Dario lunged the brush into the paint and started drawing a thick, messy line across the kitchen floor.

‘She can only stay on her side of the line,’ he said. ‘I’m not having her crossing over.’

‘Wow!’ said Pippa, giggling. ‘Look at that. She can’t get to the cooker, she can’t get into the garden – except by the side alley, I guess. And she can’t sit down at the table. All she can do is walk in a line towards the cupboard with the light-bulbs in it.’

‘You’ve stepped in it,’ I said.

‘I’m not sure this is going to be enforceable,’ said Davy. ‘What do you reckon, Pippa?’

‘Not enforceable, but fun,’ she said.

‘Give that brush to me.’ Miles was on his feet and holding out his hand. At last he was angry, rather than embarrassed and defeated. ‘Now!’

‘Come and get it.’ Dario waved the brush in the air and green spots of paint spattered everywhere.

‘Maybe I should make tea,’ said Mel. ‘That’s what we need.’

Now Miles had hold of the brush as well and the two men were struggling over it. Tiny speckles of green paint covered them like duckweed, and they were panting. Then the brush slipped from their hands and landed wetly on the floor. A sudden silence gripped the room. Miles stared round at all of us, opened his mouth, closed it again, and left. For a moment, I thought of going after him because the look on his face had been so wretched, but Pippa put out a hand and restrained me. ‘Not now,’ she said.

‘Don’t start feeling sorry for him,’ said Dario. His eyes glittered in his green face.

I got up and went to look out into the garden, which lay quiet and still in the evening light.

‘What is it, Astrid?’ asked Pippa.

‘You know, you can get so caught up in the rightness of your own position that you say and feel all sorts of terrible things,’ I said. ‘And then it’s too late and you can’t go back.’

‘Go back?’ asked Davy.

‘We were all friends.’

‘He’s got to choose between her and us,’ said Dario.

‘There you are,’ I said. ‘That’s what I mean.’

∗ ∗ ∗

‘We seem to have got things the wrong way round,’ I said.

‘What do you mean?’ asked Owen.

‘We never do anything normal, like go to a movie or have a meal or hold hands in front of other people.’