She stretched out on the sofa, felt the day ease on down and thought it was nice to just fold in front of the TV and, like, hang. The niggling line ‘Get a life’ tried to intrude but she moved it on along. The bottle of vodka should be nicely chilled and she’d be making a run at it real soon.

The doorbell rang and it startled her. Since the days with her last man, Nelson, the bell put the fear in her, making her think that he’d come to read the riot act and drag her sorry ass off to rehab.

Dark days indeed.

‘Course, she reasoned, she could just ignore it but no, here it was again, and whoever it was, they were leaning on the buzzer, determined to get an answer. Sighing deeply, she got up, went to answer it.

She threw the door open.

At first she didn’t recognise the person. A blonde woman in a black bomber jacket, carrying two Tesco bags. She gave a huge smile, said:

‘Hi, girlfriend!’

Angie, the woman who’d saved her purse.

Falls knew there was something wrong with this. Did she give out her address? As a rule, she never did. Cops only gave that to other cops and even then, to a very select few. But she’d been drinking vodka and her memory at such times was far from reliable.

Angie said:

‘So, do I get to come in or do I just drop these goodies here and run?’

‘Shit, sorry… course, come in.’

As she breezed past Falls, the smell of her perfume was downright seductive. Falls would have to ask her the brand.

Angie plonked the bags on the coffee table and surveyed the room, the empty bottles were like a neon sign.

She said:

‘Cosy.’

Falls felt mortified. If it had been a man it would have been bad enough but you never wanted another woman to see you might be a slob. Especially not a classy woman like Angie.

Falls said:

‘I just got home, never quite got round to tidying.’