Guilt, exhaustion, but yes. Horribly, the feeling was relief. «Whatever he does now, it is not your concern.» Was she talking about herself? Not quite. Cyril had not planned this scheme. More, she was speaking to the sense of grasping, the need to steer the course of events according to her own map. «It will work, or it will not work. You cannot stop him. All you can do is … » She tapped one finger on the surface of the blotter, searching for the word. “React. That’s what you control. Your own reaction to events. Not him. Not the world. Only yourself.” Tears made tiny prickles of pain at the inner corners of her eyes.

“I hate that,” he said.

She laughed. “Perhaps we should found an association.”

Daoud sipped his whiskey, then spoke to it. «I don’t know what I’m going to do.»

«Do you want to go back to Porachis?»

He shuddered like a pony shedding flies. «Heaven’s eyes, for what?»

She shrugged. «I just thought to ask. Will you stay with Cross-Costa?»

«For now, though not forever. I don’t suppose you need a secretary?» He had the decency to put his hope behind a scrap of humor, so it didn’t look quite so naked.

«Even if I could afford it, I would not hire you.» He looked stung, and rightly so, but she put up a hand to stop him interjecting. «How old are you?»

«Twenty-seven.»

«And what have you ever done for yourself?»

«I pay my way,» he said. «And send money to my parents.»

She shook her head. «I am not talking about money. When you worked for Satri, I rarely saw her without you at her elbow. I imagine it was the same for Aristide.»

«It was my job.»

«Was it your job to drop down on him?» The Porashtu idiom had always struck her as needlessly vulgar, but she employed it now for effect and it worked. Daoud’s anger curdled into grief and shame.

«Did you love him?» she asked.

He drew a breath as if to speak, then shook his head. «It was … he seemed like he needed something to hold onto.»

«And you like to be useful, very much.»

«You make me sound pathetic.»

«I didn’t mean to.»

But he was shaking his head. «He told me that I wasn’t a challenge. And I think he’s right.» She saw him shove aside a fresh bout of weeping. «I’ll go,» he said, moving to discard his half-drunk whiskey on her desk. «I’m sorry.»

«No.» She put her hand to his glass and stopped him setting it down. «Please.»

«Why?»

She cast around the bare, chilly room for an excuse, but nothing convenient presented itself. That left her with the truth. «I said I did not want you as a secretary. But I would like to keep you as a friend.»