The central heating had cooled to nothing. My bedside clock said it was 10.17, which gave me a nasty lurch. We were supposed to be in the office by ten at the latest, and it took forty-five minutes to get there, so I was at least an hour late. But I had already decided to skip the office and ‘work from home’. True, I needed to dash off a quick text saying that I was working from home, and it would have been better to do that before nine thirty, showing that I was out of bed at least; Eddie had in the past emphasised to everyone the importance of this notification as a bare minimum. ‘We do like to know where you are and what you’re doing,’ he had said at more than one Monday meeting. Then his indulgent expression would turn pained. ‘Don’t leave us guessing – it’s just rude, for one thing.’ And that was what always got me – I didn’t want to be rude to Eddie, not when he was so willing to stretch the rules for us.

So, a text. But where was my phone? The closing stages of the previous night were a familiar blank.

I did not need to consider the question long, because the drilling sound started up again, that altered, distant, hollow drilling sound … not a drill. It was my phone, vibrating on the bedside table. I had left it on a bed of coins, so its vibrations had an unusual, metallic quality, and it was this I had heard earlier. And I realised why I had jumped awake with the certain knowledge that my time was up: I had been lying in my bed, not yet awake, listening to my phone pulse over and over again, the repeated sound of someone calling, getting sent to voicemail, and calling again.

The screen was alight as the caller tried again: number withheld. That meant the office. Outgoing calls through the switchboard never showed up. I answered, expecting – dreading – Eddie or Polly.

‘Yep,’ I said, trying to sound friendly, but also like someone called away from an important work-related task that merited my fullest attention.

‘Are you still in bed?’ said an unexpected voice. It was Kay.

‘Nope,’ I said. ‘Up. Working from home.’

‘Did you clear that with Eddie?’ Kay said, her voice urgent but low. I could picture her, I had seen her make this kind of clandestine call before: she would be hunched over, elbows on her desk, free hand over her other ear, hiding behind dog-eared stacks of magazines. ‘Because, listen, because they are on the warpath about you not being in, and you need to get here ASAP.’

‘Right,’ I said. So, it was the end. The ceiling was falling, the floor opening up. ‘I’ll leave right away.’

‘Sooner than that, yeah?’ Kay said. ‘As a friend.’

The call ended.