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I was silent for at least five seconds before I said, ‘Jesus. I… Can I hire you? Both of you?’

Cordelia gave me a full-wattage grin. ‘I’ll consider it if medicine gets boring, but Luca might prefer not to repeat the experience.

’ Then she took a breath, and said, ‘Luca is why I was so sure about Holly. He asked his users about who was selling ket. And these are people who are reliant on him. To be honest, they’re probably slightly scared of him, too.

He told them he heard there was a ket dealer at the ball and he’d like to partner up.

’ She shook her head. ‘But nobody bought any there. There just wasn’t anyone trading on the night.

Luca knows all the dealers in town, too.

None of them– like, genuinely, nought per cent– were stupid enough to give some first-time user five grams of the stuff.

So that was reason number four why I knew it was bullshit.

’ Cordelia gave me a very piercing look.

‘And you know it’s bullshit, too, underneath all the grief. ’

I found myself nodding at her, slowly.

‘I just… what if I’m not up to it?’ I asked her hoarsely.

‘I mean, I hope that on a good day I’d be…

I’d be fine. But…’ I swallowed, and then said, ‘As well as everything else, I had an incident with Ryan. And to be honest, I never want to have to see him again.’ I shook my head. ‘Even though it shouldn’t bother me.’

‘An incident?’ Cordelia said, absolute fire in her expression. ‘What happened?’

‘Oh, he just– pinned me up against a bathroom door and tried to…’

At that point, all my attempts at looking professional deserted me and I turned into a pathetic, snivelling mess. Cordelia reached over and pulled me into a proper hug.

‘I’ll fucking kill him, Anna. I’m really sorry.’

It took me a while to get it together enough to say, ‘I feel like I’m falling apart.’

‘Of course you do,’ she said, letting go of me in order to look at me. ‘But you believe in this, and you’ll have to pull it together in order to make it work. And that’ll be enough to get you through. I can see that so clearly.’

I wasn’t sure how to feel about that. It was huge pressure, when I felt like I wanted– needed– to just let all the sad stuff I’d blocked out hit home.

But it was also such an amazing declaration of faith from someone I barely knew.

And as lame as it sounds, I really needed to hear it right then.

Dad was never going to say it, and there really wasn’t anybody else.

‘OK,’ I told her, nodding. ‘Back in the saddle.’

‘Tomorrow?’ she asked.

‘Tomorrow,’ I agreed. ‘For the last Pitt Club dinner of the year, which Kit is determined for me to go to.’

And for the first time since he’d invited me I actually felt like this was a good thing. That I was finally getting the chance I’d wanted for almost three weeks.

‘Oh, perfect,’ she said with a grin. ‘You have to let me help you choose an outfit.’

After she’d left I found myself thinking over and over again about what she’d said about you: about the fact that you’d maybe just been a bit of an asshole, who I’d built up in my head because of grief.

When I’m being really honest with myself, there were times I was shocked at your lack of empathy for another person. At your willingness to judge them. It occasionally made me want to shake you.

And I guess I’ve spent so long feeling like you were the absolute moral authority and I had to prove myself to you that I lost sight of the fact that you were just a flawed human being, and maybe not the love of my life after all.

Dad has just given me a little lecture about respecting your decision, by the way, having seen me writing to you. Which is funny, considering I’m now thinking of stopping writing to you entirely. I’ve realised I no longer have any intention of sending you this, either.

I’m writing for me, now. Just for me. For somewhere to put this all down, and I guess so that there’s a trace left if everything goes really wrong. Dad’ll know it’s here, at least.

I obviously updated him on a few things after Cordelia left.

I mean, I didn’t tell him what I believed about Tanya, or anything about the situation that had developed with Kit Frankland.

There was no way I was ready to tell him that the son of Philip Sedgewick’s good friend was pursuing me; and that I was letting him.

But I did, actually, manage to tell him about the motorist who’d hit me, and in a very few words about Ryan Jaffett. And I saw a tightness in his expression that made me think Cordelia wasn’t the only one who might want to kill the guy.

‘What do you want to do?’ he asked me.

I sighed. ‘I think, ultimately… stop Ryan. If he’s the killer, get him arrested,’ I said. ‘And if it’s not him, get the murderer arrested, and then stop Ryan somehow, too. By reporting him, I guess.’

‘Good,’ Dad said, and squeezed my arm. Which I figured was as close to an emotional display as I was going to get. Though he surprised me by adding, ‘I wondered, ahhh, whether I might… buy your dress. For the May Ball.’

I blinked at him. Dad had never offered to buy me anything before. I mean, except dinner with him, which I always saw as a bribe to get him out of being bored.

‘I…’

‘You don’t have to feel like you owe me anything,’ he added, hastily. ‘I just thought it would help with the budget. If you wanted to get something a bit more… extravagant than the paper allows.’

I felt knocked sideways by this, but also profoundly grateful. ‘That would be awesome. I… There was one I found, but it’s too much. So…’

And then, as I was getting ready to go to the dinner in the clingy Rasario silk-and-net evening gown Cordelia had picked out (which had, luckily, been a second-hand purchase), Dad surprised me by calling out, ‘Do come back here after the dinner. I’ll want to hear how it went!’

I didn’t know how to answer for a second.

I was both surprised that he wanted me to stay longer and confused about his motivation.

Though, of course, it made sense when I thought about it.

He wanted to make sure I hadn’t been attacked by a predator or a motorist with a vendetta, though I’d assured him that Ryan was not attending the dinner. Kit had already confirmed that.

The problem with staying at Dad’s was Kit himself. I suspected he’d want to walk me home and– yeah. Anyway. I wasn’t sure how the whole going-to-my-apparent-godfather’s might work. Though playing hard to get was a good idea in many ways.

‘Thank you,’ I said to Dad, in the end. ‘I’d– I thought I should go back to my flat, but maybe that’s a nicer idea…’

‘Well, up to you,’ he told me. But I could tell that he was eager.

‘OK, you’re on. I’ll get a cab.’