Three of the stories in my journal were finished. One was about a young mother having to choose between her own life and her unborn baby’s because the treatment she needed would poison a foetus. Another was about a father bringing a court action against the hospital for refusing to operate on his child, because his daughter’s case was medically hopeless but he couldn’t accept it. The third concerned a young doctor who, for the first time, had to break the news of a death to a family while also broaching the subject of organ donation.

I had been looking in places I shouldn’t and documenting what was forbidden and stealing stories that weren’t mine to take. Zac had forced me out of the shadows, and though I would never be a real spy, and there was nothing in the journal to reveal my history with MI5 and Maxine, out of the shadows was a place where spies should never be. To get caught, to be so stupid and exposed, to have others read my work when it wasn’t yet good enough – I couldn’t decide which of those things pained me the most.

Zac gave me his fond look. ‘You’re blushing. Are you writing about me?’

There was that bright smile of his again. It had never struck me until that moment that it was more of a sneer than a smile. I was certain he knew exactly what I’d been writing about, and that he had read every word. He’d probably made a copy of the whole thing. In fact, I was willing to bet he’d scanned it on to that laptop of his, which went everywhere with him.

My journal was never in front of the house. I always hid it in a gap between the upper kitchen cabinets. That hiding place was completely invisible, unless you climbed onto a high stool and knew to slide a hand in, where I’d hung an open folder to keep the journal within reach and stop it from falling all the way down the crack. You’d only look there if you knew to. So how did he know?

My voice was shaking, though I was trying to appear calm. ‘I’m sure I’ve never taken my journal out of the house.’ I felt as though a stranger had ripped off my clothes.

‘You know how careless and forgetful you are these days.’ He licked his lips. ‘It must be – very interesting.’

Harriet the Spy’s nanny tells her that if anybody ever finds her secret notebook, she should apologise and lie. I was too angry to apologise but the lies were easy. ‘It’s a journal of my sex dreams about you. And my descriptions of the actual sex with you.’

‘We can act it out later,’ he said.