He was rotating a glass paperweight in his fingers and staring out at the curtain of rain.

Termination. Termination. The word dinned in Chloe’s head, ugly and cumbersome and final.

‘Yes.’

The doctor glanced down at a leather-bound diary, the only item on the desk apart from the paperweight.

‘I can offer you a twenty-four-hour bed at my London clinic on Thursday. My receptionist will give you the necessary details.’

‘Thank you.’ Chloe stood up, numb. The doctor opened a drawer and slid a discreet little card towards her.

‘You will want a private room? This is our … ah … scale of charges.’

‘I don’t care about that. I just want it to be quick.’

The doctor glanced at her, not unkindly. ‘Yes. There we do have the advantage over the … ah … less expensive channels. Good morning, Miss … ah … Campbell.’ On her way out, Chloe consulted the receptionist. She learned that the clinic itself was close at hand, and that the hefty bill was to be settled in advance.

Wanting nothing more than to be alone, Chloe stayed in London and waited for Thursday. At last the morning came and she checked in at the discreet double-fronted town house in a quiet square. There were no white coats here either, just muffling carpets, bowls of waxy flowers and two or three white-faced girls who couldn’t look at one another.

For Chloe, the worst of it was the very smoothness of the system as it processed her. She was stiflingly aware of being a number, sliding along an elegant conveyor belt towards the disposal of an unwanted burden.

At the last moment as she lay waiting to be wheeled away for surgery, panic gripped her. She struggled to scream No. Wait. I want to … But the anaesthetic had already gagged her. Her eyes went blank and then fell shut, and she slid into blackness.

On Friday morning, when she came out into daylight, the square looked exactly the same. There were even the same pigeons strutting on the grass. Twenty-four hours, she thought. Is that really all? She folded her hands across her stomach and then lifted them again, clenched. She felt empty, and as thin and dry as paper.

When she hailed it, the taxi drew up with exactly the same rumble as the one that had deposited her on the same spot yesterday. Paddington Station was as grimy and cavernous as it had been days before. But Chloe was afraid that nothing would ever look the same again as she hunched over the black space inside her.

At Follies, Pansy and Helen were waiting for her. Pansy took one look at her face and folded her cold hand in both her own.

‘I know,’ she whispered. ‘You won’t believe me now, but it goes away.’

For the first time, tears stabbed behind Chloe’s eyes and she made no effort to dam them up.

‘That’s good,’ Pansy said. ‘It helps to cry.’