‘Long story short. You died. Someone recognised you from the footage as Ben Ryder. Word got out. The press went into meltdown. The whore already knew you were Ben Ryder as she’d overheard you talking to your mum and dad about telling her who you were and she was already having an affair with her boss, then when you died she sold her story for a fortune. The press went into meltdown again but then every single person that ever knew you came out and called her a lying fucking whore . . .’

‘They said that?’ Ben asks.

‘Words to that effect,’ she says, waving the question away. ‘Then your parents re-mortgaged their house to pay for the best private investigations agency in London, who bugged her and finally caught her blackmailing her boss over dinner in a restaurant.’

‘Do what?’

‘The boss wanted to leave her. She couldn’t handle it so tried to blackmail him but . . .’ she says, shuffling to the edge of her seat. ‘The whore admitted, during that bugged conversation, that she’d lied about everything . . .’

‘Fuck.’

‘Press went into meltdown for a third time. She was ruined. A newspaper paid the detective agency fee and your parents paid off the debt on their mortgage.’

‘I—’

‘So she was a whore.’

‘I’m—’

‘Complete bitch.’

‘Er—’

‘Enough said,’ she says firmly and sits back. ‘But she was a cunt.’

‘But—’

‘Done now.’ She holds a hand up. ‘We don’t need to talk about the bitch whore slag ever again.’

Ben exhales slowly and tries to get his thoughts in order. One pops into his head. ‘Who was the other person?’

‘What?’ Safa asks.

‘The other person you hate. Who? Christ, Safa.’ He reels back again, and if he thought he saw hatred in her face talking about Steph, he was wrong. The look she has now is venomous.

‘Doesn’t matter,’ she mutters.

‘Safa. You don’t get to—’

‘I do,’ she cuts him off with a dark look. ‘Leave it.’

‘Okay.’ He holds his hands up in retreat.

‘I’ll tell you one day.’

‘Fine.’

‘Not today though.’

‘Okay.’

‘Or tomorrow.’

‘Noted.’

‘So don’t ask me again. I’ll tell you when I’m ready.’

‘Yep.’

‘Which will be never.’

‘Fine.’

‘Got a time machine,’ Harry says, glancing at her casually.

‘Two steps ahead of you,’ she replies.

‘What?’ Ben asks, shaking his head in confusion.

‘What?’ Harry asks in return.

‘Do you know what she’s on about?’ Ben asks him.

‘No,’ he says simply.

‘I’m so fucking lost,’ Ben groans.

‘Blimey, Ben,’ Harry says with a gently chastising tone to his voice. ‘We’ve got a time machine.’

‘So?’

‘Safa has something she would like to rectify . . . and I want to see Edith again.’

‘Fucking hang on a minute!’

‘What?’ Harry says.

‘What about the timeline and all that arse about not going back and disconnecting?’

‘Christ, Ben,’ Safa groans. ‘Harry isn’t talking about leaving . . .’