‘Wait,’ Leon whispers, leaning to listen to what’s going on outside in the corridor.

His face breaks into a grim smile. He gestures for all of us to come closer; tentative, with shaking knees, I let Mo lead me to the door. Gerty stays back, speaking quietly into her phone.

‘You’d love prison, Justin,’ says a warm voice on the other side of the door, with an unmistakable accent. ‘Really. Loads of guys like you there.’

‘Richie!’ I whisper. ‘But – he mustn’t . . .’ We’ve just got Richie out of prison. A fight with Justin will not end well for Richie, even if in the short term it means getting him out of the building.

‘Good point,’ Leon says, eyes widening. He reaches to unlock the door, and I notice his hands are shaking slightly too. From the sounds of their voices Richie seems close to the door, and Justin further away, towards the stairs, but still. I scrub my eyes fiercely. I don’t want Justin to know what he does to me. I don’t want to give him that power.

Justin makes a rush for us as Leon swings the door open, but Richie pushes him nonchalantly, and Justin stumbles into the wall, swearing, as Richie steps inside and Leon pulls the door closed quickly behind him. It’s over in a couple of seconds; I barely have time to process the look on Justin’s face as he lunged towards me, desperate to force his way in through the door. What’s happened to him? He was never like this. Never violent. His anger was always tightly controlled; his punishments were clever and cruel. This is messy and desperate.

‘Nice bloke, your ex,’ Richie says to me with a wink. ‘Serious case of the red mist going on out there. He’s going to regret punching the door so much in the morning, I can tell you that.’ He chucks a spare set of keys down on the sideboard – that must’ve been how he got inside the building without buzzing.

I blink a few times and take a proper look at him. No wonder Justin went quiet when Richie turned up in the corridor. He is enormous. Six foot four at least, and the kind of muscular that only happens when you’ve got nothing to do with your time except exercise. His black hair is buzzed short, and there are strings of tattoos down his forearms and one curling up his neck, peeking up under the collar of his court shirt – along with a cord necklace, which I’d bet matches Leon’s one. He has the same thoughtful, deep-brown eyes as Leon, too, though they’re a little more mischievous-looking.

‘The police will be here in ten minutes,’ Gerty says calmly. ‘Hello, Richie. How are you?’

‘Devastated to discover you have a boyfriend,’ Richie says, clapping Mo on the shoulder with a grin. I could swear Mo sinks an inch or so deeper into the carpet. ‘I owe you a dinner out!’

‘Oh, don’t let me stop you,’ Mo says hastily.

Richie hugs Leon so hard I can hear their bodies colliding. ‘Don’t worry about that prick outside,’ he says to both of us as he pulls back. Through the door, Justin throws something; whatever it is smashes against the wall and I wince bodily. I’m shaking all over – I have been since I first heard his voice – but Richie just gives me a friendly unquestioning smile, and it’s like an echo of Leon’s lopsided grin – a warm smile, the sort that makes you instantly feel more comfortable. ‘Pleasure to meet you in the flesh, Tiffy,’ he says. ‘And thank you for looking after my brother.’

‘I’m not sure this counts,’ I manage, pointing to the door as it shakes in the frame.

Richie waves a hand. ‘Honestly. If he gets in here, he’ll have to deal with me and Leon – and . . . sorry, man, we’ve not been introduced.’

‘Mo,’ Mo says, looking very much like the sort of man who sits in a chair and talks for a living, and has suddenly stumbled upon a scenario where this might put him at a disadvantage.

‘And me and Tiffy,’ Gerty says sharply. ‘What is this, medieval times? I bet I’m better at punching people than Leon.’

‘Let me the fuck in!’ Justin roars through the door.

‘He’s drunk, too,’ Richie says cheerfully, and then he lifts our armchair and shuffles us out of the way so he can dump it in front of the door. ‘There. No use us hanging about in here now, is there? Lee, balcony still where it used to be?’

‘Umm, yeah,’ Leon begins, looking slightly shell-shocked. He’s moved around to take Mo’s place beside me, and I lean into his hand as he strokes my back, letting that sensation pull me together again. Every time Justin yells or thumps the door I flinch, but now that Richie is here weightlifting furniture, and Leon has his arm around me, the flinching is no longer accompanied by totally blinding fear and panic. Which is nice.

Richie ushers us all out on to the balcony and shuts the glass door behind us. We barely fit; Gerty curls into Mo in one corner, and I fit myself in front of Leon in the other, leaving Richie most of the space, which is exactly what he needs. He breathes in and out deeply, beaming at the view from the balcony.

‘London!’ he says, spreading his arms out wide. ‘I’ve missed this. Look at it!’

Behind, back in the flat, the door thuds over and over again. Leon pulls me tightly against him, burying his face in my hair and breathing warm, calming breaths against my neck.

‘And we even get a great vantage point for when the police turn up,’ Richie tells us, turning to wink at me. ‘Didn’t think I’d be seeing them again so soon, I have to say.’

‘Sorry,’ I say, miserable.

‘Don’t be,’ Richie says firmly, in the same moment that Leon shakes his head into my hair, and Mo says, ‘Don’t apologise, Tiffy.’ Even Gerty rolls her eyes in an affectionate sort of way.

I look around at them all, huddled out on the balcony with me. It helps – only a little, but I don’t think anything could help more than a little right now. I close my eyes and lean into Leon, concentrating on my breathing the way Lucie told me to, and try to imagine that the banging noise is just that – a noise and nothing more. It’ll stop eventually. Breathing deeply, Leon’s arms around me, I feel a new sort of certainty settle. Even Justin cannot last for ever.

74

   Leon

The police take Justin away. He’s basically foaming at the mouth. One look at him and you can see what’s happened: a man who has always had control has lost it. But, as Gerty points out, this will at least make the restraining order more straightforward.

We inspect the door. He’s dented the wood with kicking, and chipped off chunks of paint with his fists. There’s blood too. Tiffy turns her head aside as she sees it. I wonder what it can possibly feel like, seeing that, after everything she’s been through. Knowing that she loved this man, and that he loved her, in his way.

Thank God for Richie. The man radiates joy tonight. As Richie launches into yet another story about the lengths ‘Bozo’ would go to for first dibs on the weights machine, I watch the colour come back into Tiffy’s cheeks, her shoulders lift, her lips slide into a smile. Better. I’m relaxing too, with each sign of improvement. I couldn’t bear to see her that way, jumping, crying, afraid. Even watching Justin carted away by a police officer wasn’t enough to ease the rage.