‘Sure, let me go outside.’ The music drops away. ‘What’s up?’

‘Is there any way I can check who has been paying for a client?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean where can I find that on the accounting software? Where the payments have come from?’

‘Have you got the iPad?’

‘In my hands, actually.’

‘I’ll talk you through it.’

Anna helps me navigate to the recent payments section. Cormac’s sessions were all paid in advance on the day. After some scrolling, I find the payments reconciled against his account. The bank statement shows the transfers came from a Westpac account with the name “N. Schultz”. Not “A. Limbargo”.

‘Got what I was looking for,’ I say. ‘Thanks, Anna.’

I go back to my work emails and reread the original, looking for any meaning I might have missed.

His name is Cormac Gibbons and to say he is remarkable is an understatement.

I caught your guest lecture in July. I was at the back of the theatre and didn’t have time to say hello but I did love your take on Evil as a Necessary Ideal.

There was also the day I bumped into Adam after he sent Cormac my way, but he slipped into a taxi before I could really ask him any questions, with something like guilt in his eyes.

Please don’t let him know I’m telling you this, but he insisted on seeing you.

I gently tug on the thread of logic and it snaps when I realise Cormac knew who I was and insisted on seeing me. Nothing here is accidental. My heart is slamming, the swish and throb of blood in my ears. I decide to go straight to the source. In my office I unlock my phone and call Cormac. It rings and rings, but finally he answers.

‘Hello,’ he says.

‘Who are you?’

‘Give me a second.’ The line goes silent, then he comes back on. ‘Hi, what’s this about?’

‘Who are you really, Cormac?’

‘Me?’ he says, with a laugh that sounds oddly nervous.

‘I know that you weren’t sent here from the university. You sought me out and someone called N. Schultz was paying for your sessions not Adam Limbargo. What else did you lie about?’

His voice changes. ‘It only took you a couple of months.’

‘A couple of months?’

‘For you to figure it out. I expected better, to be honest.’

My throat clogs with questions. ‘Why? Why are you doing this? Wasting my time.’