Now she was barely awake and her head was pounding from lack of sleep. The sound of Li and one of her clients wasn’t helping. Georgie hated the ones who dropped in early in the morning having told their wives that they were going to the gym or something equally feeble.

Fortunately, it didn’t last that long.

After Georgie and Li had graduated they had shared a flat with three other friends, including a greasy-haired psychology graduate named Martin Penton-Smith. At first, Georgie had been attracted to Martin. He wasn’t particularly good-looking, but she could relate to his geekiness, and the little bit of herself that she had recognised in him. He liked his own company more than that of others – she could relate to that. He had seemed nice. He had seemed harmless.

Georgie hadn’t gone to the police. How could she? She had gone to his room willingly. They had been alone. She had sent out the wrong message. She was angry with him – she had never felt hate like it – but she was just as angry with herself.

She opened the wardrobe door and examined its rather drab contents. At the back, three stacks of files and papers – her two-year long investigation into Martin – sat gathering dust. She hadn’t opened the files for a month. She’d forced herself not to look, not to let the obsession overcome her. And the files disgusted her – she couldn’t let it go and, even now, they called to her like Sirens across the water. This was the price she had paid for not going to the police – this was her punishment, her private vendetta.

Not that she had dug up anything of interest, even after hacking his computer. He liked porn, but what boy of his age didn’t? His emails were dull. His social circle was small. His friends were uninteresting. He was an only child and his mum and dad paid for his accommodation.

It seemed like the only thing of note that Martin Penton-Smith had ever done in his life was rape his flatmate.

Georgie closed the wardrobe and caught her breath.

To distract herself, she inspected her phone and found an email from Charlie; he was on his way to the office to think things through – would she join him? Georgie thought fleetingly about Elinor Fox and the way Charlie had been so quick to dismiss her suspicions, like he had been, she recalled, with Jessica Ellinder.

She briefly glanced at herself in a small mirror on the dressing table. Her face was too freckly to wear make-up, her mother had told her. Georgie knew of course that wasn’t true but it suited her to think it was and it saved a lot of time in the morning. She quickly tied her hair back and pushed her glasses further up her nose.