Run: 2026-10-27-01M5YHNM7H5PQPB8MPGJCKJ5AG

Rory came down the stairs with a bag of takeaway containers against her hip. The lift had broken again, and she had promised Silas she would leave his dinner behind the bar rather than outside his office door. The Raven’s Nest had filled during the rain. Coats hung from chair backs, and the old maps on the walls had gathered a dull shine from the lamps. Silas stood at the till, counting notes with his right hand, his silver signet ring catching against the edges. “Yu-Fei sent the duck,” Rory called. “Tell her I’ll pay her tomorrow.” “She put extra pancakes in.” “Then I’ll pay her tonight.” Rory slipped behind the bar. A woman sat at the far end with a glass of water and a folded umbrella between her knees. Her jacket lay across the next stool, its sleeves turned inside out. Rory moved it before she noticed the face above it. The woman looked up from her phone. “Rory?” Rory held the jacket by its collar. The lining was green silk, darkened at one shoulder by rain. “Nia?” For a moment neither reached for the jacket. Nia had cut her hair close around her ears. At school she had worn it long enough to sit on, plaited with bits of blue wool that came loose in maths. Her eyebrows were the same, thick and straight, but she had a pale line across her chin that Rory did not remember. Nia took the jacket and folded it over her lap. “I thought you were still in Cardiff.” “I wasn’t aware I’d gone back.” “No. I suppose you wouldn’t be.” Silas came down the bar with two plates. He glanced between them. “I’ve brought my dinner out. You can have half if you’re staying.” Rory kept her hand on the counter. “I’ve got food upstairs.” “Good. More for me.” He carried the plates to the other end. Nia watched him open the containers and separate the pancakes with a knife. “You live upstairs?” “Third floor.” “I came in because of the sign. I saw it from the taxi.” “The green one?” “It’s difficult to miss.” Rain rattled the window beside them. Nia turned her glass a quarter turn, then another, leaving a wet ring on the wood. “Are you waiting for someone?” Rory asked. “No. I came from a dinner. Everyone else went on somewhere, and I wanted a drink.” “You’ve got water.” “I ordered a whisky first. I looked at it for a while, then he took it away.” Rory glanced towards Silas. “He didn’t charge me. I asked him to.” “He’ll find a way.” Nia smiled, and Rory saw the girl who had once stood on a bus seat and led half their class in a song about their chemistry teacher. The smile went before Rory could decide whether to return it. She put the takeaway bag under the counter. “You stopped drinking?” “Two years ago.” Rory looked at the glass again. Nia’s nails were short and bare. She used to bite them until the skin split, then paint over the damage with whatever colour she had stolen from her sister. “Good,” Rory said. Nia lifted the glass. “It was more work than I expected.” A pair of customers came in under one umbrella. Silas rose to serve them, carrying his plate behind the till. Rory moved out from behind the counter and took the empty stool beside Nia. “What kind of dinner?” “Work. A client paid for twelve people to eat a very small piece of fish.” “What work?” “Solicitor.” Rory turned to face her. “You?” “I passed the exams. They let me in.” “You set fire to Mrs Morgan’s coat.” “I set fire to a bin. Her coat happened to be over it.” “You put the bin there.” Nia pressed her thumb against the line on her chin. “I did. My supervisor hasn’t asked about that.” “What sort of law?” “Commercial property. Leases, mostly. Tonight was a developer who wanted to thank us for finishing a deal.” Rory looked at the jacket. The fabric had a clean, sharp edge where it folded over Nia’s knee. “You always wanted to get out of Cardiff.” “I wanted to go to Brazil and work with jaguars.” “That lasted three weeks.” “Four. I had a poster.” “You had my poster. You took it off my bedroom wall.” Nia laughed. The sound drew a glance from the couple at the table behind them. She lowered her glass without drinking. “Your mother made me give it back.” “She found it under your bed.” “She found everything under my bed.” “She found a boy under there once.” “He was looking for his shoe.” “He was fourteen.” “So was I.” Rory rested her elbows on the bar. The old photographs across the room showed men in dark coats outside buildings she did not recognise. Their faces had faded to the colour of cigarette ash. “How is your mum?” Nia asked. “She’s teaching part-time now. She says she’s retiring every summer, then she buys another set of pens.” “And your dad?” “Still at it.” “Of course.” “He asked after you last Christmas.” Nia’s fingers stopped on the glass. “Did he?” “He wanted to know whether you’d stayed in law.” “What did you tell him?” “That I didn’t know.” Nia looked down at her jacket. A loose thread hung from one cuff, and she wound it around her finger until the skin above it turned white. “I saw him in court once,” she said. “Three years ago. He didn’t recognise me.” “He doesn’t recognise people outside their proper setting. He walked past our neighbour in a supermarket.” “I was wearing a gown.” “Then I can’t help you.” Nia unwound the thread. Rory remembered her father at the kitchen table, marking papers with his glasses low on his nose while Nia ate the crusts Rory left on her plate. He had called them both young advocates when they argued over whose turn it was to wash up. Nia reached for her phone, then left it on the bar. “I heard you left university.” “Your sources were accurate.” “I heard other things as well.” Rory took a beer mat from the stack and flattened its curled corner. “From whom?” “Your dad, for some of it. My sister for the rest.” “My dad didn’t know much.” “He knew you’d gone to London.” “He knew that after I got here.” Nia watched Rory’s hand on the beer mat. “I gave Evan your address.” Rory stopped rubbing the corner. She had pictured this conversation in several forms: a message on her phone, a knock at her mother’s door, Nia standing outside the restaurant with a paper bag of food gone cold. In none of them had Nia put the words on the counter before Rory asked. “I know,” Rory said. “He told me you’d left your medication at his flat. He had a bag with your name on it.” “There was medication in it. Along with my passport and my bank card.” “I didn’t look.” “No.” “He showed me the bag.” “And you gave him the address.” Nia put both hands around her glass. The water trembled against the rim. “You’d sent it to me that morning. You asked me not to give it to anyone.” “I remember.” “I thought if he posted the bag, you could get what you needed without speaking to him.” “You gave it to him over the phone.” “Yes.” “He was outside the restaurant that evening.” Nia stared at her. “You never told me that.” “You never asked.” “I sent messages.” “You sent messages saying he was worried. You sent one saying he’d promised not to contact me if I spoke to him once.” “I was frightened for you.” “I was frightened too.” Silas approached with the teapot he kept under the counter. “Rory?” She shook her head. He poured hot water into his cup and took it back to his plate. Nia’s voice dropped. “What happened outside the restaurant?” “He waited until I finished a delivery. Yu-Fei saw him through the window and came out with a bag of rubbish.” “Did he hurt you?” “He grabbed my wrist. She hit him with the bag.” Nia looked at Rory’s left hand. Rory drew it back from the bar, covering the small crescent scar with her thumb. “That’s old,” she said. “I know. You fell off the wall at the paddling pool.” “I was pushed.” “By a boy on a bike.” “By you.” Nia opened her mouth, then closed it. “You pushed me because I wouldn’t give you the last crisp.” “I’d forgotten.” “My dad took me to A and E. You came round the next day with a card.” “I drew a bike on it.” “You drew a packet of crisps.” Nia gave a breath of laughter, but Rory kept her eyes on the beer mat. “I should have asked you what happened,” Nia said. “You could have asked before you gave him the address.” “I know.” “You could have called me.” “You weren’t answering.” “I answered you that morning.” Nia took the thread from her cuff and pulled it free. It stretched between her hands, longer than Rory expected. “I told myself the medication mattered more than the address. Then you blocked me, and I told myself you’d done it because I kept mentioning him.” “I did.” “I thought you’d call when you were ready.” Rory tore the beer mat along a crease. “I sent you a message from Eva’s phone. After he came to the restaurant.” Nia looked up. “I never got it.” “It said not to tell anyone else where I was.” “I didn’t get it.” “Perhaps Eva had the wrong number.” “I changed mine around then. My old phone went into the river.” Rory turned towards her. “You threw it in?” “No. I fell in with it.” “Where?” “Bristol. By the station.” “You can’t swim.” “I could stand up. It was the canal.” Rory let out a short laugh before she could stop it. Nia looked at her, waiting, and Rory placed the torn pieces of beer mat on the counter. “I went to see your mum after you left,” Nia said. “She made tea. I sat there for an hour and didn’t tell her what I’d done.” “She would have called me.” “I know.” “She was worried enough already.” “I know that too.” At the other end of the bar, one of the new customers asked Silas about a photograph. He lifted it from its hook and carried it over, his left leg stiff as he crossed the floor. Nia gathered her jacket from her lap. “I’m sorry, Rory.” Rory watched her fold the sleeves in again. “You used to say I made everything into an argument.” “You did.” “I learned it at home.” “You learned some of it at school. You once argued with a vending machine.” “It took my pound.” “You kicked it.” “And got my crisps.” Nia laid the jacket on the vacant stool. A corner of the green lining slipped out. “I thought you’d tell me if he was that bad,” she said. “I told you he checked my phone.” “You said he knew your password.” “I told you he didn’t like me going out without him.” “You said he got jealous.” Rory folded one half of the beer mat into a narrow strip. “What was I supposed to call it?” Nia’s gaze moved to the strip of cardboard. She picked up the other half and set it beside Rory’s. “You could have called it anything. I should have listened.”