‘I don’t care if he started it. You walk away, you block him. Have you been streaming yourself since we started staying at this house?’

‘No.’

‘Did he definitely know our address before? Did he tell you?’

He turns away from the computer, his eyes finding the ceiling as he thinks. ‘No, he never said our actual address, he just said he knew it. He said we had a big weatherboard house.’

‘That’s how I would describe eighty percent of homes in the South East of the city.’ I reach for the mouse. ‘How do I log off? How do I block him?’

‘If he’s good, he would have worked out the IP already, but that doesn’t mean he has the address, probably just the suburb and ISP.’

‘So it’s easy to do?’

‘Easy enough.’

‘Have you done it to him?’

He looks guilty in the screen light. ‘I have his IP, too. Well, he uses a couple of different ones, but I know sometimes he is down near Pakenham somewhere and sometimes he is near the CBD.’

Pakenham. I know Joe lives close to the city but maybe he also has a house down there. ‘I’m going to call the police.’

‘No,’ he says. ‘Please, Mum, don’t make him angry.’

Don’t make him angry. ‘Have you seen him angry before?’

‘Last time he spammed me with images. The most messed up images on the net.’

Joe. I lower myself onto Evan’s bed, the possibilities flying through my mind. I’m up late playing games, Joe had said. I assumed he meant games on his phone, but what if he meant the games Evan plays? What if Joe didn’t even know I lived there? Or worse, what if Joe started seeing me to be closer to Evan, knowing I was Evan’s mum. Now that I think about it, I have never verified that Joe works for Rad. He pays for his own sessions and is supposedly reimbursed by the company. Everything I know about him, he has told me. Other patients reported being followed – is it a coincidence or perhaps Joe really is sick; perhaps he’s a voyeur who got bored, who wanted to make his own drama.

‘It’s a coincidence, Evan,’ I say. ‘If you’re right and this person is involved, the police will find him, but that would mean it is his fault and not yours. You understand that, right?’

He nods.

‘Good. In the future don’t be so stupid as to provoke these sickos,’ I say. ‘Now I want you to come downstairs when you’re ready and spend some time with us. Dinner will be ready soon.’

But at the table, I can barely concentrate on my food. Evan doesn’t eat much either. He’s worried sick.