‘Did you have a good time on Saturday?’

I nodded.

‘Yes, me too. Sorry I didn’t get to speak to you much. I had to leave early . . . Had a callout from a patient. An emergency.’

I remained silent. The guilt of your lies forced you to embellish. ‘No one you know . . . a Harley Street patient.’ You turned to your desk and opened a file. ‘Are you OK, Constance? You look a bit peaky.’

‘Yes . . . I’ve . . . I’ve just not been sleeping very well.’

‘I could give you something—’

‘No . . . I’m fine. Thank you.’

You turned back round, looked right at me. ‘You’ll never guess what I encountered Sunday morning, though?’

I held your eyes. My face motionless. My throat so constricted that I had to squeeze out the single word, ‘What?’

‘My car. It’d been keyed. All down the side and the window smashed. And we both know who it was, don’t we?’

I placed my hand on the filing cabinet to steady myself. ‘We do? I . . . don’t—’

‘Course we do.’

The room caved in around me. The walls spun. I was too bad even for God. I had nowhere to go, nothing I could do other than to beg for your forgiveness. ‘Samuel . . . I can’t—’

‘Bloody hell, Constance, you’re really not with it this morning, are you? It was those delinquents on the bikes back again. Must have been. The bloody bastards. I spoke to the police, explained all about them, but they didn’t give a toss, obviously.’

The relief made me even more unstable, which I disguised by casually leaning against the cabinet. ‘Oh yes . . . of course. It must have been.’

‘I mean, the attitude of the police was outrageous. There’re no CCTV cameras anywhere. Can you believe that, Constance? In Kensington. It’s a joke. It’s as if someone who has a nice car should expect something bad to happen to it. Some kind of punishment for success. That’s the world we live in: little twats vandalize my car, but somehow it’s my fault for having worked my bollocks off to buy it.’

‘I thought your father gave it to you?’

Your eyes glazed with fury, yet you remained composed. ‘Jesus, Constance, whose side are you on?’

‘Sorry. I—’

‘Anyway, I only called you in to request you phone the garage, please. The insurance has prearranged with them, but I need to book in an appointment. I’d do it myself, but I’m busy working hard, you see.’ You handed me a piece of paper with a number on it and smiled, but you didn’t mean it. Your face flushed from the nerve I’d touched.

But nothing could take away the relief of the second chance I’d been given. Outside your office, I couldn’t contain my tears.