‘Can you take messages for me if anyone calls?’ she asked Chloe. ‘I’ve … got some stuff to sort out before my first client.’

‘No problem,’ said Chloe. ‘I’ll say there’s a bug going round the Centre.’

Tara’s thoughtful silences in the Johnstons’ session turned out to be useful for everyone involved. Martin Johnston finally had time to speak, and Bryony was so thrown by Tara’s minimalist new approach that she assumed it was part of the therapy and actually listened to what her husband was saying.

Tara herself spent at least half the hour trying to think of the best way to open the conversation with David, without sending him running straight to Jacqueline with accusations of workplace bullying to add to her admissions of failure.

When she’d shown the Johnstons out, she gave up and knocked on David’s door. Best thing to do was to get it over and done with.

‘Hello!’ His hair had flopped over his forehead and he was drinking a cup of mint tea very carefully, holding it with two hands. ‘Why did no one warn me about the gin?’ he groaned. ‘I only had two. Two.’

‘You had more than two,’ said Tara. ‘And there were at least fifteen entries in that competition.’

‘Yes, but we only had sips,’ he protested. ‘It can’t have been more than a glass in total.’

‘And then there was the wine. On the balcony, remember?’

‘Oh yes. The wine.’

He glanced at her and there was a momentary flash of something else: a guilty camaraderie. ‘Well, at least we missed the gong bath.’ He paused. ‘Didn’t we?’

‘David, I barely remember getting home,’ said Tara. ‘There’s something we need to talk about.’

He put down his cup of tea. ‘Did I say something inappropriate? Everything goes a bit blurry after the one that tasted like spiced pound coins.’

Tara closed the door behind her, and perched on the chair opposite his heavy Victorian desk. Not the client chair; the spare, in-between chair that was mainly used for coats and by other therapists who didn’t want to sit on the therapy couch.

‘Why do you think you said something inappropriate?’ she asked, trying to keep her voice non-accusatory.

David’s eyes darted back and forth. ‘Well, because I never know whether you’re supposed to tell people they’re looking nice these days, or whether that’s objectification or …’

‘What? No, it’s about something we discussed.’ Tara straightened her spine, trying to make herself look more dignified than she felt. ‘We had a bit of an … under-the-influence conversation.’ She paused. ‘About work.’

David stared at her with an unreadable expression in his brown eyes, and Tara stared back, and for that moment she would have given anything to be able to get inside his head, no matter what a hypocrite that would have made her on the involuntary mind-control front.