She does not want to end his life. Not now. What she wants is for her chosen words to have the impact of a weapon, to be a blunt instrument that will cause irreversible harm to his psyche, his emotional wellbeing, his mental fucking landscape. What she wants is an apology. An admission. An explanation of the crime committed, in full, with nothing left out. Evidence and atonement and closure.

If he denies it, she will take the proof she needs.

She feels the scissors inside her pocket and crosses the road, looking directly ahead. She is so fixed on where Scott has disappeared into an office building three doors down, at the same time checking her phone for how many ‘likes’ his dull caffeine habit has attracted, that a taxi swerves to avoid her. A teenage girl in tracksuit and wellingtons grasps her phone flat to her chest, having stopped her call to look at the woman who nearly died. But when she sees that Becky is OK, that Becky seems barely to have noticed, she continues her conversation.

Becky steps through the revolving doors and says to the man at reception:

‘Karin Styles. I have a meeting with Scott Allen, Simpson Financial?’

The man nods and calls through on a flashing landline, to an office upstairs.

She made this appointment yesterday. Of course Scott will be delighted to meet with her to discuss how she might invest her spare capital. It was easy.

‘Third floor,’ says the porter. ‘Just head to reception there.’

On the third floor, Scott’s PA shows her into a white and glass and grey meeting room. ‘Just hold on a moment,’ she says, ‘Scott’s just finishing up on a call. Can I get you some tea or coffee or water?’

Becky declines, sits and waits, leans her elbows on the glass meeting table then at the sight of a greasy smudge draws them away immediately, as if electrified. What if that streak of cells comes from Scott’s greasy fingerprints? Or his elbows lathered in the Kiehl’s body cream he so loves to buy in bulk in case it’s discontinued? How disgusting, she thinks, to have him touch her like this, in such a manner that she can’t control. And she nearly retches as another thought occurs, that he has been in this room many times before, perhaps recently, talking and breathing, and that it’s possible she is now inhaling the sour spittle from his enthused conversations about Birmingham and Cannes and his life’s fucking achievements.

She is overwhelmed and stands up to leave, unsure whether she can weather this assault, this way of taking him in after all these years. But then the door opens and he sweeps in, bringing a strong cloud of clean laundry and pepper-spiked citrus. Her heart stops. She knows this smell, has inhaled it on tester strips in the basement of Selfridges once, maybe twice: Dior Sauvage, his choice of aftershave.