Kate indicates right, manoeuvres the car onto the M6, and pushes down hard on the accelerator. As the car leaps forward she screams, releasing all the tension that’s been building for the last couple of hours. What was she thinking, threatening to kill herself? It was crass and she’d cheapened herself, just by saying it aloud. She hadn’t regretted it at the time, not when Tom had gasped. At least something she’d said had provoked a reaction, only it wasn’t the reaction she’d been hoping for. He’d looked at her like she was scum. He’d won and she’d lost. It was the most infuriating, humiliating conversation of her life.

Her phone, lying on the passenger seat, pings with a new message. She ignores it. It’s been pinging and ringing on and off for the last fifteen minutes but she’s not picking up. If those twats back in Cân-y-gwynt need someone to complain to, they can whinge at Tom.

Who did he think he was? Kicking her off the retreat. Her retreat, the one she’d put everything into: her money, time, passion and creativity. The retreat she’d organised for him, to reinstall his confidence and ease him back into what he enjoyed most: fixing other people. While he’d sat on his arse in their South London hovel, snivelling about poor dead Jenna and eighteen months in jail, she’d been stuck at her computer, rebuilding their lives. When did she get to fall apart and have someone else pick up the pieces? Never, that was when. And now she was driving back to London … to do what? Wipe the arse of some snot-nosed graduate solicitor for ten pounds an hour? Fuck that. She’s not going to spend the rest of her life walking to and from filing cabinets in cheap shoes so someone else can live a life of luxury. She doesn’t need Tom to make SoulShrink a success. He was the figurehead, nothing more. As long as his face is on the Twitter account she can keep doing what she’s been doing, pumping out inane tweets about self-worth, happiness and joy. She’ll turn them into tote bags, or tea towels, or T-shirts, or whatever the fuck it is the public will pay for. She could license the SoulShrink name, set up new groups across the country, like Slimming World, but for the needy and depressed. All she needs is for Tom to sign the company over to her.