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‘Think so.’

I wanted to, of course I did. I wasn’t just going to abandon him. But I also wanted to get back to London. I hadn’t set eyes on my flat for over two weeks now, and I wanted to takeadvantage of my new determination to leave some things for Kate and Zach to deal with. If I wasn’t around, they’d have to manage. I was planning to talk to them about it before Dad was discharged, but even getting them together in the same room to have the conversation seemed like an impossible task. How two people who currently had zero work commitments could be so busy all the time, I had no idea.

‘Thanks for sending your next couple of chapters through,’ said Theo. ‘I thought they were brilliant, particularly the one leading into Ethan’s body being found. There’s a real shift in atmosphere from page one-fifteen onwards.’

‘You don’t think there’s too much exposition?’ I asked him. I sometimes had a tendency to throw in a ton of clunky information that I thought the reader needed to know rather than organically weaving it into the story.

‘Not in my opinion. And your dialogue is spot on,’ he said.

‘Yours too, actually,’ I said, looking at the print-out of the chapters he’d posted me because he knew I liked hard copies and that I didn’t have a printer up here. ‘I’ve marked up all the bits I really like with a pink highlighter. See, there’s loads of them?’ I said, holding a handful of pages up to the screen.

He looked pleased, until his phone rang and he glanced at the screen.

‘Scarlett, sorry, do you mind if I take this?’

‘No, go for it,’ I said, immediately wondering what could be so urgent.

Theo turned off his camera, but his microphone flickered off then on again, so that although he probably thought he’d muted himself, I could actually hear every word he was saying.

Amanda, hi.

Yes. Seven o’clock on Wednesday would be perfect.

Can you message me your full address?

Lovely. I look forward to seeing you then.

My stomach dropped as I tried to read between the lines. He was going on a date on Wednesday, wasn’t he, it was obvious? Under the table, I played with my fingernails – the beauty of Zoom was that I didn’t have to show him the turmoil that was happening inside my head. The conversation had sounded a little stilted. Stilted but friendly. Meaning it was probably a new thing – their first date? It might not go anywhere, not that that mattered, because then there’d be other women, there always were. After all, what did I expect, that he was just going to sit around at home on his own? Just because that was what I was doing, just because going back on the dreaded dating apps hadn’t even crossed my mind, didn’t mean he had to do things the same way. So I brazened it out when he came back on screen and we chatted about the book for a bit longer and then we ended the call on a nice note. Of course I spent the rest of the night imagining him wining and dining some beautiful, talented woman who he would fall for on their Wednesday at 7 p.m. date while he forgot all about me.

I slept on it and felt mildly better the next morning. I’d managed to convince myself that it would be easier to get over him if he was dating somebody else, anyway. It would be out of my hands then, wouldn’t it? There would be no more lingering looks between us or tentative touching of fingertips and then the unbearable pulling back on both sides. We’d know where we stood. And I could focus on myself and on the changes I wanted to make to my life. That thought spurred me on and I picked up my phone, finally texting my brother back about the uni accommodation.

Zach, sorry it took me so long to reply to your message, I was away with work and then there’s all the stuff with Dad. Things are a bit up in the air at the moment with my books. I might be changing publishers, and I’m scrapping the book I was working on originally. I’ve got your course fees covered, but in terms of living arrangements etc. I think it’s best if you sort that out yourself. Hope everything is well. Dad would love to see you x

Then, keen to strike while I was in a feisty mood, I called Kate, who as usual immediately launched into a rant about what terrible things Richard had done that week.

‘He’s refusing to give me any spending money,’ she moaned. ‘It’s like he’s using cash to control me because he knows I need it and he’s going to make me beg for it.’

There had been something I’d been wanting to say to Kate for quite some time now but was so busy playing the ubiquitous comforting-big-sister role that I’d never quite got the words out. But enough was enough. I didn’t think I could listen to another single conversation about Kate not having any money of her own.

‘You could always get a job,’ I said. ‘Now the kids are at school. Something part-time, maybe?’

There, it was out there. She wasn’t going to like it and for possibly the first time in my life, I really didn’t care.

‘But I’ve got the school run. How’s that supposed to work?’

‘I don’t know. After school clubs or something. Lots of parents make it work.’

‘And who’s going to employ me, anyway? I barely scraped my A levels as you well know.’

Kate was throwing obstacles in the way thick and fast but I was not going to be defeated, not this time.

‘There’ll be something. What kind of industry are you interested in? Maybe narrow it down,’ I suggested.

I could practically hear Kate spluttering at the injustice of it all.A job? Her?!

‘I’ve never even thought about it.’

‘Well maybe you should. Because then at least you wouldn’t be relying on Richard to give you money. I think you’d feel a lot better about everything, actually, if you were a bit more independent financially.’