But after a long time of this, while I clean the kitchen and the cat box and do a bit of dusting and respond to various messages (there are sixteen from Antonio and I ignore them all), O suddenly goes to her keyboard and starts typing one-handed but fast as an Uzi. So she’s not coding, she’s writing something. I wonder what. O usually dictates her correspondence; she’ll have to ice her hand afterwards and probably take painkillers. But I also know better than to try to tell O what to do.

So I lie on the sofa in the end and watch some more ASMR, just to feel a little better. I listen to some of my own recordings; strangely, I can never put myself to sleep, but I can give myself tingles, and that’s what I’m looking for right now. I need that lightness on the top of my head, that sparkling sensation in my scalp, the feeling of my skin thrumming that makes my eyelids droop and my mind go blank, makes everything all right.

But it doesn’t work. All I can think of is Mel in the bathtub. Mel on the roof. Mel on the pavement.

Antonio, sobbing on me, holding my body in that intimate way he has, that way which doesn’t seem to understand any social boundaries at all. He makes me feel like an animal. Can I trust him?

‘Why should you have to?’ O says suddenly.

I startle.

‘Sorry?’

‘Why should you have to trust Antonio?’

She’s rubbing cream into her hand – it is sore, that’s obvious, and this is the hand that isn’t injured.

‘Are you reading my mind?’

She laughs. ‘No, you’re muttering loudly enough to be heard. Didn’t you know?’

I get up off the sofa.

‘Must have been half-asleep.’

‘Anyway,’ O says, ‘you don’t have to deal with Antonio any more if you don’t want to. You’ve got clients stacked up like aeroplanes. This thing with his girlfriend—’

‘Mel.’

‘This thing with Mel, it’s tragic and awful, but why you would want to get involved is beyond me.’

‘Well, Roman seems to think there was foul play. I have an obligation.’

‘You aren’t obligated to anyone but yourself, darling. People play you like a harp.’

I wince.

‘Sorry. I meant no disrespect to Melodie. People play you.’

It’s not what I want to hear, even if it’s true.

‘I have to see Melodie’s mum tomorrow,’ I say.

‘Have to? Why?’

‘Well, because it’s the only decent thing I can do.’

‘Huh. Are you sure no one is blaming you? Because you might want to take representation with you.’

‘O, seriously, you’re so dark.’

O snorts. ‘The situation is dark. I’m merely realistic.’