I sat and seethed and was helpless. Purging myself in the toilets had left me scraped out and shaky, every minute feeling like my last minute of strength. I stared at my phone, letting the glowing screen dissipate the anger – not so that it truly diminished of course, but connecting it to the sea of everyone else’s concerns, their dramas and causes, made it seem small and petty and common, turned some of it into sadness and self-loathing. I mentally composed tweets or Facebook status updates that might actually communicate a little of the inner ocean, and I mentally discarded them. To be overly serious would be to make myself a burden to others, and to ironise and jape was no hope at all, just dishonesty. Best not.

Pierce had left a three-word voicemail: ‘I’ll text you.’ But no text had followed. Instead there was a message from a stranger on Tamesis: ‘We good to go?’

The sender’s name was Olipi, and it wasn’t hard to decode: a stealth account for Oliver Pierce, and a possible literary play on words to boot. A way of using the app without the wider public knowing. I checked back and found that Olipi had followed me during the splurge of activity caused by Quin’s post about me. But I had followed back, and I had no memory of doing that. When? Had I known I was following Pierce? I had not gone through all my new followers, following back – on the contrary, I had ignored and avoided that great wedge of notifications. Going through them all was simply too much bother. I looked at the account: it was low-key, anonymous content, but it had checked in at Winterzone the previous night and its connections looked about right, minor London authors, Vice writers, people in publishing. Francis Quin.

Anyway. It was done. We good to go? No, not me, not in this rain, in this condition. No way was I staying up late for a pointless escapade. But I didn’t want to reply, not yet. If I replied to Pierce right now saying that I didn’t want to spend a third night wandering with him, I was laying myself open to cajoling and persuasion. I was weak, and might yield to his bullying charm. If I waited until I was lodged tight in my flat, away from Pierce and Quin, near the fridge, I could rely on the Need to save me, to give me the strength to ignore Pierce and stay home.

There were no communications from the office – no missed calls or voicemails, no emails asking where I had gone or demanding I return. And office hours were over. Either I had escaped without consequences, or I had sharpened the blade that was poised over my neck, ready for tomorrow morning.

Another message from Pierce: ‘I’m waiting.’

Yeah, me too.