I’d been followed home from the wine bar. I knew I had. At times I’d wondered whether I’d imagined it, but that was just wishful thinking. I knew someone had been following me. That silver car had driven past three times round and had stopped just yards from me. I’d known that if the driver had got out, I’d be in serious trouble. I hadn’t taken it personally, though, until I saw the same car driving up and down my road later that night. After I’d run away from it I hadn’t seen it again until I was in my flat. Nobody had followed me there. I felt a surge of panic. I hadn’t thought of that before. They knew where I lived.

I swallowed my pride and called Sarah, but she didn’t answer. I sent her a message:

Something weird has happened. Someone put a photo of me through my front door in the middle of the night. They must have been watching me.

There was no reply for a while and I sat in my car watching my colleagues go into the building. They stared at me and I waved, but got no response. Just before nine, when I was about to go in to work, she replied. I could tell she was exasperated with me:

Honestly, Ruby, every time I speak to you, you tell me something weird has happened. First it was the phone calls, then the mysterious interview, then someone following you, and now this.

Energized, I replied: I know! And that’s the second time I’ve been sent a photo! Who could have done it?

She didn’t reply for an hour. I was frantically typing my way through the office’s workload when her message finally came through:

Oh for God’s sake. I always think that if someone’s going through too much drama, it’s down to them. Something to think about?

My face was hot when I read that. And then I remembered I hadn’t even told her about the half-empty mug of coffee. I was glad I hadn’t then.

CHAPTER 54

Ruby

I started to become quite withdrawn. Sarah’s messages had upset me and made me realize that if she didn’t understand, nobody would. I hardly said a word at work, just saying “Good morning” and “Good night” to people who didn’t respond. When I got home at night I did nothing, just sat on the sofa, watching movies on my laptop, trying to figure out how I’d got into this mess and how I could get out of it.

The pull toward Tom was becoming stronger. When I was at my worst ebb on Wednesday night—I hadn’t spoken to anyone for two days by then—he sent me a message.