She got up and walked into her bedroom, pulled the bag out and took out her walking boots. She pushed her hand into one boot, then into the other. She repeated the action to make sure, although she was already sure. All of the money was gone.

Frieda felt quite calm: it was as if she had been expecting this to happen. She was neither fearful nor distressed, but was conscious of a sense of steely resolve. She went out of the bedroom, out of the front door and along the balcony. She counted the flats until she found the right one, then knocked on the door. Nothing. She knocked hard again. She heard movement and the door opened. The man was so large that he filled the doorframe. He was wearing jeans and a shiny blue football shirt and had long dark hair, really long, down to his shoulders. He was holding a TV control.

‘Is Hana here?’ said Frieda.

The man just stared at her. His gaze was heavy, like something being laid on top of her to hold her in place. Frieda couldn’t tell if he had heard her or even if he understood English, but she could sense the weight of his hostility. She knew that she was putting herself in danger, yet she didn’t feel scared because she was so angry.

‘Hana,’ she repeated. ‘I think she’s got something of mine. I need to talk to her.’

Still no answer.

‘I would like you to answer me,’ she said. ‘Because I know you understand what I’m saying to you.’

It had happened even before she knew it was happening. She was pushed, across the balcony, hard against the railing. His right hand was on her neck, pushing her back. She noticed the oddity that his feet were bare and that his breath smelt meaty as she teetered backwards and wondered almost abstractly whether this was it, whether he was going to push her over the railing. He shifted his grip, grasping the top of her shirt.

‘I never even want to see you again,’ he said. ‘You hear me?’

Frieda didn’t think an answer was required.

‘I said, you hear me?’

‘I hear you,’ said Frieda.

The man held onto her shirt for a few more seconds, then released her and gave her cheek a light slap. He walked back inside and shut the door.

Frieda went back to her own flat. She felt in her jacket pocket. She found a twenty-pound note and a five-pound note. She had four pound coins and some change. She considered for a moment, gathering her thoughts, then she went out and down the stairs and into the street. She needed to walk, as if it were a way of converting her anger into something purposeful. She passed through streets, through a park, along the side of a graveyard, along the side of a railway bridge with car-repair shops under the arches. Suddenly she stopped and looked around. She had been seeing nothing, hearing nothing. She hadn’t even been thinking in any coherent way. She tried to orientate herself. For a moment she thought she was lost but, with difficulty and a few wrong turnings, she was able to find her way back.

She remembered that she hadn’t eaten but she wasn’t hungry any more. She half undressed and got into bed, but as hour after hour passed, the idea of sleeping seemed impossible. A few feet from her was that man: she could still feel his hand on her neck and his breath on her face. At one point she reached for her watch and saw that it was half past two, and she thought of getting up, leaving the flat and walking through the streets again, as she often did at times like this. Instead she lay in the dark and thought about the process of going to sleep, of letting yourself drift into unconsciousness, and wondered how people did it, how she had ever managed it before. And she thought of everyone in London, everyone in the world, who needed – once every day – somewhere to go to sleep.

And then she must have been asleep herself because she woke with a start. She looked at her watch. She needed to hurry. She got up and undressed and washed in the trickling shower and pulled on more clothes and ran out of the front door and took the train up to Sasha’s. It cost her three pounds, which left her with just over twenty-six. She thought about people who made calculations like this every day – each pound mattering, each bus or train journey adding up, every cup of coffee in a café something to be budgeted for. The world felt a very different place if you didn’t know how you were going to get to the end of the week, much more precarious, much scarier. She had always known this, but now she felt it – and all of a sudden she remembered herself at sixteen, without money and alone in the world, and it was as if she’d come in a circle back to that time when she had had nothing.

But, of course, she didn’t have nothing, because she had friends.

‘I need to borrow a small amount of money.’

‘Of course. Is something wrong?’

‘I just need some cash.’

Sasha looked through her purse. She had fifty pounds and gave Frieda forty.

‘Can I use your phone?’ asked Frieda. ‘I’ll be very quick.’

Sasha handed her the phone and Frieda stepped out into the hallway. She took the card from her pocket, the one she’d been given the previous day. It felt as if Fate had pushed her into this.

When she had finished, she was about to rejoin Sasha when she hesitated. She felt that she had no choice but, at the same time, as if she was violating a promise she had made herself.

She dialled Reuben’s number: no reply. She swore softly to herself.

‘Is everything all right?’ said Sasha.

‘I didn’t know I was saying that aloud.’ Frieda thought for a moment then tapped in another number. There was a click on the line.

‘Is Sasha? I have been –’

‘No, Josef. It’s me.’

‘Frieda. What happen? Where are you?’

‘I need your help.’

‘Of course. Tell me.’

‘I can’t get through to Reuben. I need you to go to him and borrow some money. Say, five hundred pounds, which I will of course repay as soon as I’m able.’

‘Frieda,’ said Josef. ‘Your money. What happen?’

Frieda felt the question like a punch on a bruise. Her immediate impulse was to say nothing, to deflect him. But then she surprised herself and, simply and fully, told Josef everything, about Hana, about the money, about the man. When she was finished, she waited for Josef’s anger, his surprise. But there was nothing.

‘OK,’ he said calmly. ‘I see Reuben. I bring the money.’

‘Is this safe for you?’ said Frieda. ‘Have the police been bothering you?’

‘No. Nothing now. Reuben say loud noise in newspapers. Some journalists poking. No problem.’

‘I can’t say how sorry I am to be asking you this.’

‘Then don’t say.’

She ended the call and turned to Ethan, who had come into the hallway.

‘Are you ready?’ she asked him, and he stared solemnly at her. ‘We’re going to have an exciting day.’

Bridget Bellucci lived in a terraced house in Stockwell, polished wooden floors, panelling, abstract paintings, french windows leading out onto a long garden. She introduced Frieda and Ethan to three-year-old Tam and one-year-old Rudi. Then she spread out Tam’s collection of fluffy toy animals on the carpet in the living room.

‘Why don’t you show them to Ethan?’ she said.

Tam did not seem especially enthusiastic about this. She picked up one of the animals and hugged it defensively, turning her back on the rest of them. Ethan sat down heavily on the floor and took out his own little pile of wooden animals, which he carefully arranged in front of them, his lower lip jutting out. Bridget gestured to the sofa. She was dark under the eyes; her hair was unwashed.

‘I thought you weren’t available,’ she said to Frieda. ‘What changed your mind?’ She didn’t seem especially grateful.

‘I’ve got Ethan. But I could help out for a few days until you find someone. If that’s what you want.’

‘It is what I want. I’m about to call work and say I’m sick.’ She gave a snort. ‘That’s what we do – it’s OK to be ill yourself, but woe betide you if you take time off for your children. But I can’t pretend to be sick for too many more days.’