At about five thirty Eva was woken again.

Brian was limping around the bedroom.’ yelling, ‘The pain! The pain!’ at regular intervals. When Eva sat up, Brian said, ‘I phoned NHS Direct. They employ morons! Idiots! Plonkers! Fools! Halfwits! Dingbats! Cretins! Hamburger flippers! Pond life! An African witch doctor would have been better informed!’

Eva said wearily, ‘Brian, please. Don’t you get tired of fighting the world?’

‘No, I don’t much like the world.’

Eva felt a terrible pity for her husband as he stood at the end of the bed, naked, with a white linen napkin tied around one leg and with toast crumbs in his beard. Eva turned away from him.

He was an intrusion in what was now her bedroom.

Brianne wondered how long Poppy would be crying. She could hear her sobbing through the party wall.

She looked at the alarm clock she had owned since she was a child. Barbie was pointing to the four and Ken was indicating the one. It wasn’t what she had expected from her first night at university.

She thought, ‘I’ve been dragged into the pages of an EastEnders script by that awful girl.’

At about half past five she was startled awake from a ragged sleep by somebody banging on her door. She could hear Poppy whimpering She froze. There was no escape from her on the sixth floor of the accommodation block – and anyway, the window only opened a few inches.

‘It’s me – Poppy. Let me in?’

Brianne shouted, ‘No! Go to sleep, Poppy!’

Poppy beseeched, ‘Brianne, help me! I’ve been attacked by a man with one eye!’

Brianne opened her door and Poppy fell into the room. ‘I’ve been attacked!’

Brianne took a look up and down the corridor. It was empty. The door to Poppy’s room was open and the emo track that she played incessantly – A Fine Frenzy’s ‘Almost Lover’ – was blaring out. She glanced into Poppy’s room. There was no sign of a violent struggle. The bedcover was unwrinkled.