‘I thought you’d never ask.’

‘I ask now.’

‘I’m fine. I’m lonely. But I’m keeping busy. The new novel is taking all of my attention. I hired a new ghost yesterday and she seems very dedicated. She was messaging me all last night with questions about the characters and the plot and the this and the that and the blah blah blah. Honestly, I’m absolutely exhausted. At this rate, I might as well be writing the bloody thing myself.’

‘This is not something you like to do?’

‘Well, I basically do anyway,’ she said with a sigh. ‘I mean, the stories are mine and I come up with the titles, so all the ghost really has to do is think up the actual words and put them on the page.’

The young woman appeared again in the background, saying something to Pylyp in Ukrainian, and he turned around to answer her. She kept her hand on his shoulder throughout the exchange, then leaned forward and stared into the screen, her face filling Beverley’s laptop so completely that she looked as if she was about to burst through it, like the little girl in The Ring.

‘Stara zhinka,’ she said, spitting out the words, and Beverley scribbled the phrase down on a notebook phonetically, thinking that she might look it up later. She glared at the woman and the woman glared back.

‘Pylyp,’ she said. ‘Pylyp, could you tell your cousin to step away from the camera?’

He said something and the girl disappeared.

‘I don’t see any family resemblance,’ she said. ‘Are you sure she’s your cousin?’

‘She is being adopted when she will be little girl,’ said Pylyp. ‘My uncle and aunt could not have the babies of their own. They find her by side of road under huge pile of cardboard boxes and take her in.’

‘I see,’ replied Beverley. The doorbell rang and she looked around, rather relieved to be able to bring this conversation to an end. ‘I’d better go,’ she said. ‘There’s someone at the door. Shall we talk again tomorrow?’

‘Of course,’ said Pylyp. ‘Goodbye, then. Kiss Ustym Karmaliuk for me.’ And with that, he hung up the call before Beverley could even say another word, leaving her a little stunned.

‘Charming,’ she muttered, but nevertheless, she reached down and did exactly what he had asked, resting her lips on Ustym Karmaliuk’s shell for a few moments and ignoring the insistent chiming of the bell, which rang through the house, echoing off the empty spaces and making her feel more alone than ever.

ABSENCE IS PRESENCE

Unlike the reception area, Jeremy’s office was a testament to good taste, with a bespoke wooden KARE desk, a pair of floral armchairs from Anthropologie and a sequence of framed album covers on the wall, displayed to suggest that he might be a boring old solicitor but he still liked to kick it big time with the kids. The two men took a seat opposite each other, manspreading with such ferocity that a sturdy bridge could have been constructed between their crotches.