Suki spent a while searching alumnus networks and private club registries for any information about Curtis Worthing. He was fifty-nine years and 358 days old, with an undergraduate degree in humanities from Beauchamp University, pivoting to higher degrees in management and biomedical sciences from Harvard and Cambridge. Divorced once, remarried then widowed, two adult children from the first marriage. He was indeed born in Leamington, and attended Barford School. But for all the routine biographical information, he didn’t seem to have lived a life beyond going to school and becoming, by apparent social osmosis, a mega-wealthy tycoon. Some news articles from Private Eye and the Morning Star tried to hint at unsavoury relationships with Tory cabinet ministers that gave him a competitive advantage back when the NHS was dismantled. Then again, people with the right connections and money in the bank tended to have a competitive advantage in any crisis. It was the way the world was set up; you didn’t officially need to be a criminal to make an obscene killing.

* * *

Around four, Helena phoned. Petra got the nod from Suki and took the call into the kitchen. ‘I just wanted to check that you were alright,’ she said. ‘You seemed unwell this morning. Are you sure you shouldn’t be off work, at home?’ It wasn’t like Helena to fuss about Petra, and the fact that she was brought home to Petra just how weirdly she’d acted.

‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘Sorry about this morning. It’s just… I haven’t been sleeping well.’

‘Hm.’

Her mother’s dubious response needled Petra. She doubted herself enough already – first, the boy at the park last night, then seeing Ida’s reflection this morning, and now this unsettling freak-out over her feet. And try as she might, she couldn’t shrug off the experiences as products of her tired imagination. She remained convinced she’d seen what she’d seen, felt what she had felt – she checked her hands again and her stain-free fingers controverted her. Vincent, the Metamuse shows, Ellis Brown – they had all invaded her life at the same time. It was starting to make sense now, what Ellis Brown had said – that she’d been targeted. And it had all started that day she saw the young woman in Helena’s lobby; the woman she was convinced was now masquerading as a friend of her mother.

Utter any of it aloud, though, and it would all sound crazy.

‘Tell me, Mom – how long have you known Ida? You act like I should know her, but I can’t remember meeting her. Where did you meet her?’

‘This again. You’d better get some rest, love. You want me to get you some groceries?’ Helena stopped speaking and drew in a sharp breath that Petra heard clearly.

‘What’s the matter, Mom? Are you alright?’