Once I’m sure that I am okay, I pull out my phone and dial one of the few numbers I have stored in there. Marianne sounds surprised but glad to hear from me.

‘I’ve been trying to get in touch,’ she says. ‘I got your message the other day, but when I tried to call you back, you didn’t pick up.’

‘I know, I’m so sorry. I was called back to work. I am really sorry for not answering your call.’

The waiter brings our drinks and sets them on the table. Charlie lifts his with both hands, as I’ve taught him. Nice and steady, no slips.

‘But you said you managed to find him,’ asks Marianne. ‘This Alastair?’

‘Yes. Yes. At the hospital.’ I take a sip of my own lemonade, the bubbles painful against my tongue. I don’t think to tell her about the text message, the threat. I simply write it off in my mind. Some anomaly, some prank, some miscommunication. ‘He had no idea she’d died, Marianne. They were a couple at university but it seems they hadn’t spoken in years.’

‘So I knew her more recently than he did.’

‘Yes. He had no way of knowing. When they broke up, she completely cut him off.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know … He doesn’t really know. But he mentioned her parents … Marianne, there was surely something wrong there. As if … she was embarrassed by them? Or they were … ashamed of her? She changed her email address, phone number. He tried to contact her, but it was like she’d blocked him.’

There’s a pause while Marianne digests this. ‘Well, there must have been a reason.’

There is always a reason. ‘Like what?’

Marianne’s tone is so sure. ‘Something he did to make her act that way.’

I hesitate. ‘That he did?’ Charlie stares up at me, wondering what I’m talking about. I hand him another crayon and nod at him to keep colouring. ‘I don’t know, Marianne,’ I say. ‘I don’t think so. He really seemed like a nice person.’ And I think of what she said herself: how after Sarah got ‘head-hunted’, Marianne couldn’t reach her either.

‘He seems really hurt by it all,’ I add. ‘Still.’

On the end of the line, Marianne goes quiet.

‘I meant to ask you,’ I say. ‘Those times when she wasn’t working with you, where did she go then, do you know? You said she dipped in and out.’

‘Well, holidays, I assumed, like I said. Perhaps she sometimes took other jobs.’

‘But what if she didn’t?’ I say. ‘What if she was just … at home, on her own?’

‘No,’ says Marianne. ‘I can’t imagine that. I just can’t.’ She goes quiet again. Then: ‘Well, now what?’