I take a moment to set my phone up, propped on my table to record the room. The clock ticks toward 10 am. I step out to reception.

‘Come on through, Joe.’

He’s reading something on his phone. He pockets it, gets up and walks past me. There are three seats in my room, two opposite each other and one to the side. Where someone sits and how they sit tells you a great deal about their personality and mood. Some people fall into the seat, some gently perch on the edge, some grip the arm rests like a nervous flyer. Some sit close on the seat beside me, some, including almost all of the men I see, sit opposite me. That’s always been Joe, but today he sits to the side, close enough that he could reach out with his huge hands and grip my throat.

He places one ankle on his knee and sits back deep in the chair, with his arms folded and his paunch poking out against his shirt. A defensive body position.

I lower into my own seat and find myself leaning away from him. Then I see it, a scratch on his neck, near his Adam’s apple. The type of scratch a fingernail might make. I fixate on it for a moment. He sees me looking but doesn’t say anything.

‘So, how are you, Joe?’

His head jerks in my direction. He looks at me. ‘I’m not so good today, actually.’

‘Oh?’

Now he huffs, leans over his knees and scrubs his hair with his palms. I feel the energy in the room become electric, like the moments before a storm. ‘I had police turn up at my house this morning.’

My fingers squeeze the pen, numbing the tips. I swallow the stone in my throat and try to keep a neutral expression. I need to keep up the façade. ‘Really? What did they want?’

He heaves a sigh, his head turning, a smile eventually surfacing. ‘Well someone called them on me – they must have. Can you believe that? Someone called the police and sent them to my house. First, I thought it must have been my internet browsing history or something weird like that but I know someone must have called them. They turned up this morning, knocked on the door and said they wanted to talk to me about a fire. The whole thing was very embarrassing actually, with my wife getting the kids ready for school, and my neighbours all seeing a police car parked in my driveway.’

Keep it together, Margot. ‘Well that sounds awful. And what did you say?’