ROBBIE, THOUGHT TIFFANY, WALKING ALONG HACKNEY ROAD past shops that had once sold wholesale leather goods but now hawked artisan coffee at prices just the wrong side of crazy, could go screw himself. She was going on a date. If the date went well, anything might happen. She was ruling nothing out. And if Robbie parked outside her flat one more night, she'd call the police. No, scratch that, she'd go one better and call her brother, and there was only one way that was going to end.

The evening was warm and every other car seemed to have its roof down, each one pumping out different music, samba then rap then something African, diversity filling the rich city air around her. Somewhere up ahead was Shoreditch and her date, a guy who was unknown beyond a brief message exchange. And a photo, which she'd admit hadn't exactly blown her away, but he had the right amount of eyes and noses, and she liked blonds, so that was a start. Anyway, pretty much anything beat Robbie White.

As she walked, she knew people were looking at her, men mostly, but she didn't care. Hell, it was her job to have men look at her, so it wasn't like it was anything new. Fact was, she looked amazing, and the long walk in preposterous heels wouldn't do her calves any harm either. No, she felt good, as good as she'd felt for a long time, and if tonight wasn't a success, it wouldn't be for lack of trying.

'Hey, darling, you want a ride?' A car slowed next to her, a Golf with some kind of exhaust upgrade on it that made it sound, well, ridiculous, she thought. Exactly the kind of thing Robbie went for. She'd bet this guy had a decal on the rear bumper. What was it Robbie had had, until she'd made him take it off? Louder than your girlfriend last night. Sad didn't begin to cover it.

'No,' she said. 'Thanks.'

'Where you going?' the driver asked, his urban patois betrayed by his skinny white face.

'I've got a date,' she said, almost sang, and did a small pirouette on the pavement in celebration. The driver, barely more than a boy, tried to think of a comeback but instead just laughed, said, 'You have a good one, my darling,' and drove off with a throaty snarl of his ill-judged exhaust. Yes, thought Tiffany, tonight's going to be a good, good night.

She'd never been to Convent before, didn't really do trendy bars, or at least the Shoreditch hipster brand of trendy. She didn't like men with beards, which kind of ruled out eighty per cent of the available talent, she figured. She turned off Curtain Road down a side street, but before she got to the lit sign, red neon spelling out Convent in cursive, a voice called to her.

'Tiffany?'

She turned to see a man, blond hair, cross the street to catch her up. 'Yeah?'

'Tobes. Hi. Sorry. I didn't book and the bar's full. Since when was it all hen parties around here?'

'Oh.'

'I recognized you from your picture. You're ...' He paused. 'You're really pretty.'

Tiffany giggled and pretended to fan her face with a flat hand. 'Whatever. Where are we going?'

'I've called an Uber. You know the Rooftop?'

'No. Listen, I don't want to be driving ...'

'It's close.' He paused. He wasn't young, was older than she'd expected, but there was something immature about his face, and Tiffany felt sorry for him. Maybe he was out of his depth. Maybe he just needed a bit of mothering. 'Look, I know, I feel stupid because it was my idea ...'

'It's no problem,' said Tiffany. 'Though I'm gagging for a drink.'

'Hold on,' he said. He held out a hand. A car stopped, and the driver said through his open window, 'Sam?'

'We're in.' He opened the passenger door and held it for Tiffany, who slid in showing as little thigh as possible. He got in next to her and said to the driver, 'Got the address?'

The driver turned and nodded, said, 'Verona Street?'

'That's it.'

Tiffany relaxed into her seat and decided to let things go, to just enjoy the night, see where it took her. It looked like her date had it under control. She looked across at him and he wriggled out a hip flask, said, 'You were saying?'

'What?'

'About gagging for a drink?'

He unscrewed the top and handed the flask to her, and she took it and drank, then he took it and put it to his mouth and handed it back to her, and this happened again and again, and as the taxi drove them through the busy, alive streets of east London, the night closed in around her like a warm blanket and she no longer cared where they were going, or why, or what was carrying her there, because she'd rarely felt so good in her life and things were going to be wonderful, just wonderful, of that she had no doubt, though actually, no, no, stop, why was it that the taxi driver had called her date Sam? Wasn't he called Tobes? Wasn't he?

HIS SISTER HAD BEEN VENTILATED BY A TUBE DOWN HER throat, and a cardiac monitor blipped her steady heart rate in green waves across a black screen above her head. Solomon kept an eye on her blood pressure, which looked reasonable, the systolic number on top holding fairly stable at around 101, the diastolic below maintaining a steady 63. Not bad, both a little on the low side, but what did he expect? She was in a coma, and both numbers were within the acceptable range, or at least the range that scientists had decided. Who knew?

He looked down at her sleeping face, her closed eyes and delicately arched nose, which also looked normal. Directly past her and in his line of sight was his brother, whose nose fell well outside any range that could be termed normal, bent and misshapen and broken he couldn't guess how many times. The ventilator hissed and sucked and the cardiac monitor blipped quietly and it could almost have been peaceful, here in this room, if it hadn't been for his brother. Solomon had never seen his brother calm, but right now he was a lean, shaven-headed vessel of barely controlled rage.

'So tell me this, since you know everything,' his brother said, as passive-aggressive an opening as Solomon could imagine. 'If it was an accident, how come she's missing teeth and her arm's broken? Tell me that.'

Solomon didn't answer, instead he turned and looked out of the window onto the hospital's car park. An old man was helping an unsteady woman – Solomon assumed it was his wife – into the passenger side of an old-model something-or-other, it was hard to tell from up here. Maybe a Nissan. Yes, it was a Nissan. Good.

'One hypothesis would be that it happened when she fell,' he said, without turning around. This was the first time he had left his apartment in twenty-two months. Twenty-two months, one week and three days, to be exact.

He watched the old man start the car and navigate his way out of the car park, as carefully as if he was piloting a tanker through a crowded harbour. In his mind, Solomon idly transformed the car park into a geometric framework, planes and axes and angles, placing every car in theoretical motion and modelling a possible future in which each and every one was simultaneously attempting to find the exit. He played out alternative pathways and trajectories and velocities, a complex yet elegant piece of mathematical choreography.

'That,' his brother said behind him, 'I'm not buying. What, she goes out for a drink, nearly drowns, ends up in a coma and it's an accident? Please, Solly. Do me a favour. You know who did this, don't you?'

Solomon was spared from answering this question by the sound of the hospital-room door...