‘Not to her. She doesn’t know. Nobody knows. Apart from Adam. She thinks Adam’s her dad.’

‘And he took that on?’

‘I was going to kill myself. He told my parents and his parents that he was the father. It gave my parents someone else to be angry with and … then I couldn’t do it. Because he’d have been blamed and that wouldn’t have been fair. I was going to give the baby up. But then I held her and … well …’

‘And he carried on? Saying she was his?’ Scott wipes his eyes. ‘That is love. Fuck me, that is love. Tell me you got married?’

Becky shakes her head. ‘I’ve been a real mess. It really fucked me up.’

‘Of course it did.’

‘At least I had you.’

‘What?’

‘I had you to hate. And now I don’t have anything all over again.’

They sit there, holding each other’s hands. She feels like a cork lost on the ocean. She has imagined killing this man. She has wanted him to suffer. And now her hands are in his, and he is crying over her pain.

He tucked her in, in the recovery position in case she was sick.

‘I know it sounds weird,’ he says, ‘but in case you start thinking it must be bullshit and I must be lying …’

‘I believe you.’

‘Just listen. I think you should, like, get a DNA test of me done, or whatever. Even if you think it’s crazy. It’s good you believe me, but have the proof as well.’

She thinks about the scissors in her pocket and how hard she has been gripping them. How crazy her plan feels now. That she was going to shear the evidence from him. And here he is, offering it to her.

He sticks his head out of the meeting-room door and calls out: ‘Yol, could I have some scissors and some tissues in here, please?’

When Yol brings them, looking curious but saying nothing, he snips off a lock of his hair, and swabs the inside of his cheek with one of the tissues. ‘If you want me to do a blood test or something, I’ll always say yes, OK? But at least you’ve got these.’

She takes them, knowing she’ll never use them.

‘You’ve had quite a ride,’ he says to her. ‘Holy shit, Becky.’

They hug one last time as she leaves Scott’s office. In the lift, Becky squeezes her hand into a fist in her pocket and feels sticky blood from where the scissors have punctured a hole in her palm. She wonders if one day she will be so punctured that nothing will remain of her.

And yet, despite feeling damaged, she does not feel drained. She feels something new. A feeling that is quick and sharp and predatory and she is so afraid of it that she begins to run.