IT’S BEEN THREE days. Other than Simms, the only person I’ve told about the box is Sarah, the dietitian. I’d knocked on the door to her room between clients, and sat down with her to explain what was in the package and why we needed to take extra precautions from now on. The police came and took the package away as evidence, but I assume if they had any leads from it, I would have heard. Simms told me they would dust for prints and attempt to trace it back to the original sender. Until they have the person who sent it, we have three new rules at the practice.

One, I open all packages, no one else.

Two, we never leave each other alone in the office. Which means coffee runs are a team effort if there are only two people here.

Three, we keep the door locked at all times. Patients press a buzzer and Anna lets them in.

The last two came as suggestions from Simms. He said they’re just precautions, but his advice legitimised our collective fears.

I ran the Tan this morning but I found myself frightened, always looking over my shoulder for Joe. The fear is irrational, and I know it’s pointless wasting energy on it, but some sicko is trying to mess with me. They’re trying to terrorise me.

Between clients, I put light music on in my office and try to rid my body of stress. I meditate, I go through progressive relaxation techniques, tensing and loosening muscles until my body aches from the effort. I’m looking forward to my three o’clock session. At three o’clock I have Cormac. We were making progress last week, and I tell myself that’s why I’m looking forward to it, but I know it’s something else. Oddly, I feel like I miss him – only a little, but I do feel a bubble of excitement. I should call a colleague, another psychologist to discuss this with. But I know what they’ll say: countertransference, emotional attachment. It’s not enough of an issue to break off the professional arrangement, I need to just be mindful of it, to counter that bias I have towards him. I think about Joe and the advice I got to end his therapy. That’s another decision I haven’t made yet. It could provoke him, or it could be me needlessly losing a client, if this is all some bizarre coincidence.

As I come to the end of my session with Suzette, a bored, self-medicating housewife, I don’t hear the buzzer at the door and consequently I begin to feel energy draining from me. Cormac hasn’t arrived. When the session is up and I go out to the waiting room, I find he isn’t there. But he was late last time. Maybe he’s working again.