‘Y-yes.’ He cast a look at Ella. ‘Yes. But I’m leaving my wife.’

‘When?’

‘When Ella is…’ He watched Ella, searching for a sign from her. But her eyes remained downcast. ‘When Ella is…ready?’

Which would be precisely never, if I’d understood this properly.

It was absolutely horrifying. Poor Boyd, poor Boyd’s wife, poor Jonah, poor Ella. So much damage, so much shame, so many secrets.

*

As soon as I’d seen Boyd off the premises, I went to a consulting room, and locked the door, as I tried to breathe through a stabbing pain in my ribs. When he had started talking about visiting hotel doctors, a memory—appallingly vivid—had landed wholesale in my head, of a time I’d gone to one of those doctors.

What was astonishing was that until now I’d managed to forget it completely.

It had been some time during those terrible months after Yara—late autumn, probably. I remembered how cold I’d been. My supply of Ambien had run low at an alarming speed and I was in a panic, wondering how to get more.

I couldn’t ask Carlotta, it was too soon for yet another visit to Dr Gagnon, but then I remembered a doctor that Dad had visited a few years earlier when he’d been visiting New York with Mum. Dad had had an upset stomach—like I said, something always happened—and he’d gone to a nearby GP who serviced the hotels in midtown Manhattan.

In the speediest consultation of all time, the doctor had given Dad a prescription for several strong drugs, relieved him of a couple of hundred dollars and bounced him back out into the street.

With the aid of Google, it was remarkably easy to track down the doctor and even easier to bag an appointment for later that day. Getting showered and dressed was a bit of a big deal, but I’d caught the subway into the city, sat in the chair and told the doc I was visiting New York for five weeks. ‘The jet lag has triggered my insomnia. And I need to be on top of things for my job.’

‘That’s too bad.’ He was all unctuous sympathy, as well he might be, considering how expensive he was.

‘I’ve used Ambien in the past,’ I said. ‘It’s always worked well.’

‘Okay.’ He scribbled something on a pad. ‘Five weeks, you said? Should I also give you some Xanax?’

A powerful longing seized me, but very quickly, I said, ‘Oh no. No thank you. No.’

I couldn’t let sleeping tablets be a gateway to any other drugs. Staying clean was vital. The Xanax—or Valium or any kind of benzo, really—would have taken the hard edges off the world. I couldn’t truthfully say that I wouldn’t have enjoyed it but I didn’t need it the way I needed Ambien.