Athena and Gabe exchange a glance that looks significant. ‘Her blue spells have been getting more frequent,’ she says. ‘That’s what we call it when her lungs are deprived of blood—she starts to turn blue in places. Her A&E visits have been ramping up.’ I stare at her in horror. Every single new piece of information is like a blow to the stomach, but she’s rattling them off matter-of-factly, as if all these nightmare scenarios are something she’s profoundly familiar with. ‘They used to only happen when she exerted herself,’ she continues, ‘but they’ve been happening more and more. We’ve all been on tenterhooks over it.’

We’ve all been on tenterhooks. We. I glare at my brother. ‘Do you know her?’

‘Tabs? Yeah, I’ve met her once or twice with Marlowe at Athena’s,’ he says, and I flinch. Tabs. They’ve all been playing happy families and sharing this burden with Marlowe and I’ve been fucking oblivious this entire time.

‘Then why the fuck didn’t she tell me?’ I ask, the frustration in my voice audible even to me, because I’m feeling stupid now.

Athena gives me a don’t be obtuse look. ‘Come on, Brendan.’

‘Come on, what? How the hell does my assistant have a sick kid and no one thinks to tell me?’

‘It was deliberate,’ she says in her measured voice, ‘and I’m sorry if that stings, but there was no way you would have hired her if you’d known her circumstances, and she really needed this job. She needed the money.’

I feel like I’m wading through treacle here, but my brain is fuzzy and overstimulated and I can’t work out what the fuck connection I’m failing to make. ‘What for? The flights? The trip?’

‘For the operation, Brendan. It’s costing her a fortune, but she was out of options. GOSH had a six-month waitlist and Tabby needed that operation urgently. It was looking increasingly likely that an emergency op would happen, which would have been far too risky and far too invasive.’ She steps forward, her brow creased, and puts a hand on my arm. ‘Marlowe needed to find a way to get hold of hundreds of thousands of pounds as quickly as possible, and she flat-out refused to let me pay for it.’