‘You haven’t done anything,’ Miriam said.

‘I’m not worried he’ll be angry at me. I just – I don’t know. I didn’t say anything this morning and then I came out to meet you. I’ll probably tell him tonight. Not that there’s much to tell.’

‘Who do you think it was?’

Annabelle shrugged. ‘I have no idea. Truly.’

‘Maybe one of your many fans,’ Miriam said. ‘A stalker. Now you’re a literary celebrity.’

‘I think I have about five fans,’ Annabelle said. ‘At least, that’s what the sales of my books would indicate.’

‘The new one’s doing OK,’ Miriam said.

‘Kind of,’ Annabelle said. ‘But it’s not exactly flying off the shelves. It’s not on most shelves.’ Every time she passed a bookshop she went in to see if Deep Cover was there. It was not. Guy had told her not to worry; writing careers took time to build. He quoted a statistic about how many thousands of books were published each year, and how many titles bookshops bought.

The upshot was that there were a lot more published than appeared on the shelves.

So the fact you’re not in every bookshop in the country is not a problem, OK?

It was a valiant effort, but it didn’t make her feel much better.

‘So, not a fan,’ Miriam said. ‘But then who?’

‘I can’t think of anyone. And all this “I’ll rescue you” stuff – it’s weird.’

‘I can think of two possibilities,’ Miriam said. ‘It’s a joke, in which case you have to figure out who has such a crappy sense of humour, or it’s a test. Someone wants to see if you are truly committed to the marriage.’

‘No one has a sense of humour that crappy. And as for a test – who would think I need rescuing? I love Matt, and anyone who knows the first thing about us knows that.’ She sipped her drink. ‘If it is a joke, I’ll bloody murder whoever did it.’

Miriam puffed out her cheeks. ‘Matt might want to test you.’

‘Maybe. But he wouldn’t do this. It’s not like him.’

‘No,’ Miriam said. ‘But this is a big moment, and people do strange things. He may want to be one hundred per cent sure. I know it’s unlikely, but of the two’ – she shrugged – ‘that’s where I’d put my money.’

‘OK,’ Annabelle said. ‘I’ll talk to him.’

4

‘No,’ Matt said. ‘Of course I didn’t! Why would I do that?’

‘Miriam thought it may be a test,’ Annabelle said. ‘To see if I’m committed.’

‘It’d be a pretty shit test,’ Matt said. ‘A random person emails you and you say yeah, sure, I’ll run off with you. If I was going to try and test your commitment, I’d come up with something better than that.’

‘Then what is it?’