‘You did, Alex. You told them those men didn’t say anything, but they did. I’m sure they did.’

‘Well… I said, dragging out the first word to give myself another nanosecond to think. ‘They said something in Dutch but I didn’t understand it.’

‘Alex, they said your name!’

‘No they didn’t.’

That made her pause, her brow furrowing with self-doubt. ‘I’m sure… I’m sure I heard them say your name just as we were going into the hotel. I had my back to you – but I heard someone say Alex.’

I opened my mouth to lie, then paused, hating myself. But what else could I do? One of the men had said my name – that’s why I turned around – and there was only one explanation: Siobhan must be in Amsterdam; I really had seen her through the pub window. And somehow she had found out where we were staying and had sent some thugs after me. I wondered if she had been watching while they beat me up, smiling to herself, discovering that revenge is indeed sweet. Not that I ever hurt Siobhan. Scared her, maybe. Inconvenienced her. But surely I hadn’t done anything to merit this – to merit her following us to another country, for God’s sake, and setting a pair of gorillas on me. What was wrong with her? While I was lying in the hospital bed I had realised how stupid it had been to run here. I should have gone to see Siobhan as soon as I’d suspected that she was responsible for the magazines and dead rat. And I should also have found a way of dealing with Kathy’s friend. I had made another mistake.

It was time I stopped running away from my problems.

Except I still didn’t want Emily to know about Siobhan. It would ruin everything; I would lose the only woman who didn’t hate me; the only woman in this fucked-up scenario who wasn’t capable of sending me to prison or hospital. Emily was the only one who cared for me. And another thing – hiding the truth from her had almost become a reflex. So I opened my mouth and told another big fat porky.

‘I honestly didn’t hear anyone say my name, Emily. And I would have heard it – you always hear when people say your name, don’t you? I think you must be mistaken.’

She was quiet for a moment. ‘But I’m sure one of them said something to you just before they ran off.’

‘He said something in Dutch.’

She looked at me for a long moment. And then she started to cry, not making any noise, just sitting there, still staring at me, fat tears rolling down her cheeks. Then her lower lip started to wobble and she covered her face with her hands.

I sat up, feeling sick with guilt, hating myself more than ever. ‘Emily…’

She lay down and turned away from me, facing the wall. She said, ‘I need to sleep.’ I crossed over to her bed and put my hand on her shoulder but she was as still as a rock, her muscles tense. It was hard to believe that only a few hours ago she had been the dancing queen of Amsterdam, surrounded by men, her face alight with happiness. I said her name again and she said, ‘Let me sleep.’

I was relieved. I wasn’t going to have to talk about it any more.

The next morning, as soon as I woke up, I took a bath. My chest and stomach muscles felt like I’d lost a fight with a gorilla – rather, two huge Dutch gorillas, doing their best to send Amsterdam’s peace and love image up in a cloud of smoke. My cheekbone was badly grazed where it had scraped the pavement, and I held a flannel against it. My head pulsated and hummed; it hurt inside and out.

After a few minutes, I heard Emily get out of bed. She came into the room and said, ‘I want to go home.’

‘Okay.’ I wasn’t going to argue, knowing what the guy had really said to me as I lay in the road: This is only a taster. It sounded like a ‘this town ain’t big enough for the both of us’ -style threat. Stay one more night and I might end up saying hello to whatever lived at the bottom of this city’s canals.

Emily left the room and I slid deeper into the water. I felt a surge of anger towards Siobhan. The stupid bitch; she was a maniac; what the hell did I ever see in her? And, in answer to my question, I remembered her face, and her body, that body that was so much slimmer and more toned than Emily’s. I remembered her smell, and the sound she made as she splashed about in the bath.

I rubbed the towel against my bruises, reminding myself what Siobhan had done, sparking anger. I held on to it. Siobhan equals pain – my pain and Emily’s. I had to stop being stupid; I had to stop thinking about Siobhan and comparing her to Emily. Siobhan was slim – so what? I like Emily’s curves. Siobhan is strong and determined and creative and Emily is…

Shut it, Alex, I shouted inside my head, pressing the towel against my bruises again. I loved Emily, not Siobhan. Siobhan was a menace. A threat. And if she did one more thing – then I’d give her a real reason to be scared of me.

After dressing, I went downstairs with Emily and told the receptionist that we wanted to check out, and asked if they could call the airport to get us a flight that afternoon or evening. They were really helpful. It was almost as if they wanted to get rid of us. After that, we went upstairs and packed, emptying our room and taking our rucksacks downstairs. The receptionist had told us that if we were going to leave that day we needed to vacate our room, which wasn’t a problem. Downstairs, we were told that they’d got us on a flight at three that afternoon, and that we could pay at the airline desk.

I looked at my watch. ‘We’ve got a couple of hours to kill.’

‘I’m hungry,’ said Emily.

We went for lunch at a nearby Italian restaurant. My treat, as I announced once we’d sat down. Three times during the meal I almost confessed everything, mainly because I couldn’t bear the dreadful silence that hung between us like a shroud. Of course, I didn’t confess – just made several valiant attempts at small talk, trying to get Emily to laugh by cracking jokes about the waiter’s moustache and the restaurant’s décor. My attempts were doomed. I wasn’t in top form anyway – I kept looking over my shoulder to see if my friends from last night had decided to make good on their threat and offer me a full course of Dutch violence.

After lunch, we went back to the hotel to check out and pick up our luggage. We took a taxi to Schipol airport and I watched the city centre recede, vowing silently that one day we would return, when all the mess in my life had been cleaned up. I reached over and squeezed Emily’s hand. To my great relief, she squeezed back and gave me a small smile. Then she shuffled closer and leaned her head on my shoulder.

‘You do love me, don’t you?’ she whispered.

‘Of course I do.’

That was all she said.

The taxi got stuck in traffic and I started to look at my watch agitatedly, worried that we were going to miss our flight.

The driver heard me tutting and said, ‘No worries. I will get you there.’ But the traffic wasn’t moving, and neither were we. Emily stared out of the window, a deeply melancholy expression on her face.

‘I’ve got a headache,’ she said, after we’d been sitting in traffic for about twenty minutes.

I kissed her temple. And we waited some more.

Finally, we arrived at the airport, paid the driver and lugged our rucksacks out of the boot, loading them onto a trolley and rushing into the building. We spotted the EasyJet desk and raced towards it. We had two minutes left to check in, but just before we reached the airport desk, Emily said, ‘Hang on. I need the headache tablets.’ We stopped and she opened the side pocket of her case. ‘I’m sure they’re in here.’

As she groped around inside the case, a puzzled look appeared on her face. She withdrew her hand from the pocket and we both looked at the small plastic bag she was holding.

‘What the fuck?’ Emily said.

The bag contained enough dope to keep Ali G happy for a fortnight. Emily held it like it was a bomb, and looked at me accusingly. I hoped that she could see I was as shocked as her. But then I looked up and saw that a member of the airline staff was coming towards us, pointing at her watch.