Ten past two, and still no Leah. I bring out my phone to call her – something unexpected must have happened – but just then, I hear the door to the waiting room open. I take a deep breath and entirely clear my mind so that Leah has my full, uncluttered attention for the forty minutes that are left of the session.

But it isn’t Leah, not the Leah I’ve seen every Friday for over nearly three years. This is someone else entirely, a ghost of the woman I know. She’s trembling all over and soaked wet. Her right eye is a medley of violet and red and inky blue, swelled shut.

‘Jesus, Leah,’ I begin, but fall silent at the look in her eyes.

‘Can we just begin,’ she whispers.

‘Okay,’ I say, and usher her into the room. My heart is pounding hard and my palms are slick with nervous sweat, as if I’m the client, not the therapist. I’ve lit a discreet votive candle on the windowsill like I always do, and there are fresh flowers on the table, autumnal amber roses, and I make a point of taking each of them in briefly to center myself. Leah settles into the chair opposite me and fidgets strangely with her jacket sleeves, as though she can’t control herself and is at the mercy of a motor running inside her that she can’t shut down. Her fingers loop through and around a little hole she’s made on the sleeve, making it bigger and bigger. As it recedes, her sweater underneath becomes visible and I see that it is speckled with blood.

‘What’s happened, Leah?’ I ask softly, in spite of my usual habit of letting the client begin the session at their own point of urgency.

‘I…’ The words seem to catch in her throat.

‘Someone has hurt you. Do you think you can tell me about what happened?’ I watch as tears drop from her eyes onto her hands, still working away at unraveling the jacket sleeve. ‘Leah?’

No answer.

‘Have you gone to the police?’

‘No.’

I nod, and let the ‘no’ hang for a while on the tense air between us. ‘It’s not like they’d do anything much,’ she continues in a whisper.

‘Maybe it would be good to speak with them anyway,’ I say, but she shakes her head curtly. ‘Leah, did Anton do this to you?’ The abusive and vindictive ex-husband seems like a natural assumption.

Blank stare.