“I hit rock bottom,” I said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I don’t know what to say to you,” said Patrick. His eyes looked glassy. “My head is too full of last night. I have no memory of saying that, that thing about Colleen.”

“I shouldn’t have mentioned it,” said Ellen. She was desperately disappointed with herself. Her mobile phone began to ring somewhere in the house.

“Can we talk about it later?” asked Patrick. “I want to go to the police station while Jack is asleep and make that report.”

“Of course,” said Ellen. “Actually, let’s just forget I ever—”

“We’re not going to forget it,” said Patrick. “We’re going to talk about it later.” He smiled at her and the unexpectedness of it made her want to cry. “I promise, we’re going to talk about everything at length later and we’re going to fix it.”

“Right.”

Now her office phone was ringing again.

“Sounds like someone needs to talk to you,” said Patrick.

“Yes,” said Ellen, and then the air rushed from her lungs. “Oh, God, I forgot. I completely forgot.”

“What?”

Ellen looked at the clock above Patrick’s head and tried to will the hands to move backward. It was two-thirty p.m. “That journalist. I was meeting her at a café at eleven this morning.”

She imagined the journalist sitting in the café, tapping her fingers and irritably checking and rechecking her watch. She was already ill-disposed toward Ellen. Now she would think that she’d deliberately not turned up. She would think that she had something to hide.

“Reschedule,” said Patrick. “Tell her there was an accident. It’s not your fault.”

“Yes,” said Ellen, because of course that was logical, but she already knew that it was going to be a disaster, and when she listened to the messages on both her office phone and mobile, she knew she was right.

“I’m waiting in the café you suggested,” said Lisa, with a faint emphasis on the word “you,” and the sounds of the café in the background adding to Ellen’s guilt. “I’ll be filing this story this afternoon, so if I don’t hear from you soon, I’ll assume you have no comment, and you’re not interested in responding to the issues raised by your former clients.”

As Ellen hung up, the phone immediately rang again, and she snatched it up, desperate for the chance at redemption. It was her mother.

“I’ve been trying to call you all morning,” she said accusingly. “I really need to talk to you.”

“I can’t talk,” said Ellen. “I’ll call you back.”

The phone rang again. It was Julia, her voice low and throaty. “Guess who just left my bed.”

“I can’t talk right now,” said Ellen again. This was becoming like some sort of awful comedy. “I’m sorry.”

She hung up.

“Breathe,” said Patrick, standing at her office door.

“Shut up.”

She called the journalist’s mobile number. The phone went straight to voice-mail. Ellen tried to keep the panic out of her voice as she left a message.

“My stepson had an accident,” she said. “I’ve been at the hospital.”

Her voice didn’t sound authentic. It sounded forced and fraudulent. She felt like she was lying, because she’d never called Jack her “stepson” before and because she hadn’t been at the hospital with him, she’d been at the hospital seeing Saskia.

Patrick mimed deep breaths at her. Ellen waved him away.

The guilt she was feeling was all out of proportion: She hadn’t murdered anyone. In fact, she hadn’t actually done anything except forgotten an appointment.

As she completed her message—I’d still love the opportunity to talk to you! (“love the opportunity”; she sounded like a telemarketer)—she heard the doorbell ring.

Patrick went downstairs to open the door, and Ellen’s heart sank as she recognized the client’s voice. It was Mary-Kate turning up late as usual for her two-thirty p.m. appointment. Mary-Kate certainly deserved a paragraph in the article exposing Ellen. The journalist could calculate how much Mary-Kate had spent over the last few months without any progress. Then they could mention how much Ellen had spent on those boots she’d only worn once.

I’m a bad person, thought Ellen. A bad, bad person.

(He’ll never love me the way he loved Colleen.)

(He’ll eventually leave me and I’ll be a single mother like Mum.)

(Without a job.)

(And to top it all off, in five very short years I’ll be forty. Forty!)

“Mary-Kate,” she called out, filled with decisiveness. She walked briskly down the stairs as Patrick ushered Mary-Kate inside. “I’m very sorry but I can’t see you today. In fact, I can’t see you again.”

Mary-Kate looked startled. Ellen registered that there was something different about Mary-Kate today. Her face didn’t look as doughy as usual. Also, she was carrying a bunch of flowers, and she was wearing a long buttercup yellow scarf.

“I’ll just check on Jack before I go out.” Patrick raised his eyebrows questioningly at Ellen over the top of Mary-Kate’s head, his tired eyes clearly trying to communicate something along the lines of, Are you sacking all your clients now? He gave a minute shrug and disappeared up the stairs.

“Is everything OK?” asked Mary-Kate.

“Not really,” said Ellen. “I think there’s going to be an article in the paper tomorrow that’s going to destroy my reputation.”

“Which paper?” said Mary-Kate immediately, as if she was going to rush out and buy a copy.

“The Daily News,” said Ellen. “I’d really rather you didn’t read it, to be honest, but look, my point is—”

“Well, let’s see what we can do about it,” said Mary-Kate. “Oh, and by the way, these are for you.” She handed over the flowers.

“Thank you.” Ellen stared at the flowers. They were yellow, like Mary-Kate’s scarf. “I really don’t think there’s anything you can do, although I appreciate—”

“Tell me everything.”

“Pardon?”