I explained how her invitation to tea had come about. “Obviously I could have made some excuse, but I have to admit I was curious . . . for your sake as well as mine.”

I thought he might object to the last part, but he didn’t seem to.

“Of course. What did she have to say?”

I described the meeting. Marco listened with uncharacteristic restraint: not interrupting to dispute Julia’s version of events, not snorting incredulously as he usually did when he disagreed with something, not reacting at all to Julia’s candid admission that she’d only recently come to regard the episode in the hotel as an assault. The only sound he made was when I told him she was still determined to publish her memoir—self-publish if necessary—at which point a long, anguished groan escaped from him.

“No . . . ! No, no, no . . . !”

I was surprised at the strength of his reaction. Not that I expected him to be indifferent, but the self-publishing idea had seemed fairly unthreatening to me; a very minor setback in the context of his overall victory.

“I told her you’d still try to stop her,” I said. “I’m pretty sure she isn’t going to do it. But even if she does, who’s going to see it? Nobody reads those vanity press things, do they?”

“Oh, it’ll get read. She’ll put it online, start some kind of social media campaign or whatever . . .”

I hadn’t considered that. All the same, I thought he was overreacting.

“It would still be libel though, wouldn’t it?” I said. “I mean, you could still sue . . .”

“Sue what? The Internet? Even if I could, she clearly doesn’t give a fuck. She obviously has nothing to lose.”

The exuberance had drained out of his voice. Clearly I’d wrecked his mood.

“I’m sorry . . .” I said feebly.

“Ah, god! I am so tired of this! I am sick to death of it! She’s like something out of a zombie movie! Every time you shoot her down she bounces back up.”

“I do think I might have scared her off, Marco,” I said. “I mean, she definitely got the message that you’d go on fighting to the bitter end.”

“Thanks. But in all honesty I don’t think I could face another round. I’d rather just . . . throw in the towel I guess.”

I’d intended to tell him the business about the fifteen-year-old girl, thinking he’d appreciate hearing that Julia had admitted fabricating at least one story. But I decided on balance it could wait.

“Speak to your dad,” I said, as soothingly as I could. “I’m sure he’ll have some ideas.”