He looks up and this time I tell him the entire story. I begin at the beginning. The email from Adam. Cormac’s sessions. Other patients reporting being stalked. I tell him what Cormac told me. As I explain, I realise the true depth of the deception. Cormac’s backstory he probably found online, knowing my curiosity would take me there, knowing the news article had parallels to his own life. A father tragically taken, a drug addict mother. I tell Gabe about tonight, finding out who N. Schultz is, all but confirming my suspicion that Cormac is Peter’s son Nathan. Realising that Cormac’s attacks have not been random, but revenge.

‘Revenge? How is it revenge, when you helped his father?’

‘That’s just it,’ I say. ‘Because of the inquest, he probably thinks I must have been at fault.’ I pause, realising that lying hasn’t helped me at all so far. ‘I wasn’t entirely honest with you about Peter.’

‘You went to see him and forgot to report it to the clinic. Home visits were supposed to be recorded. Right? That’s why you got in trouble, a breach of protocol.’

‘That’s why there was an inquest, but in reality there was more to it than that.’

‘What else, Margot?’

I chew my top lip, arranging the words in my mind before I speak. ‘He … well, he fell in love with me.’

‘He fell in love with you? How does that happen if you’re just a case manager? You’d have to remove yourself, if you knew a patient had developed feelings for you, right?’

‘I should have removed myself earlier, I know. A relationship formed. It was brief, but intense. Then I called it off.’

‘A relationship? Wait … between you and a client. And he committed suicide?’

I wince. I’ve been over this so many times in my head. He was bipolar. He had carved another woman’s name on his arm. I made a mistake, but it wasn’t my fault. It was never my fault; Peter was born with it, an imbalance in neurotransmitters. Some people can’t be saved. ‘Yeah, I mean it was soon after I broke it off that we met. I requested that another case manager take over. The trouble is, they found out from one of Peter’s neighbours that I had visited at night and it had not been recorded and reported back to the crisis centre.’

‘And you didn’t think to tell me at the time?’

‘I did, remember? I told you I had come out of a rocky relationship.’

‘I didn’t realise it was with one of your patients,’ he says. Then he does that shrug sigh. He’s still hurting: all the lying, the years of keeping a secret and now kissing Cormac.

My phone is buzzing. A bit late for a message, I think, but it keeps buzzing. Cormac is calling me.