Eventually, she hauled herself up and went out to the basins to wash her hands and wet down stray bits of hair. She was about to leave when she heard a toilet flush and one of the cubicle doors swung open. Brooke Lester had obviously been sitting silently in that cubicle for some time, taking the chance for a moment of privacy and solitude.

Anita flashed her an automatic friendly smile and Brooke smiled back, not unfriendly but not quite meeting Anita’s gaze.

Brooke did a little embarrassed grimace at herself in the mirror. ‘I have to wee all the time now.’

‘Oh right, of course,’ said Anita, scrambling to think of a way to continue chatting without being intrusive.

But the young woman herself seemed to want to hang on to the conversational thread and keep talking to this stranger in the ladies. She said, ‘The baby kind of jumps around, dances on my bladder.’

‘Ha. Right.’ Anita nodded. ‘I’ve never been pregnant, but I’ve always imagined it must be a crazy feeling—having a separate human moving independently inside your body. It’s a wild idea, really.’

Shut up, Anita. Why was she prattling on with this nonsense?

But Brooke puffed out a little laugh. ‘Ooh, yeah! Never thought about it like that.’ Then she leaned down to address the baby. ‘Who are you in there? And what music are you dancing to?’

The two of them exchanged goofy smiles and Anita was struck by how lovely this woman was and how very young.

Then Brooke sighed, the delight evaporating from her face as if she’d suddenly remembered something grim. She arched her back and wriggled her shoulders to relieve aching muscles.

Anita offered, ‘Those wooden seats in the court—they can’t be super comfortable for hours on end when you’re pregnant.’

Brooke stood there rearranging her overly tight clothes—a peach-coloured narrow skirt with an elastic maternity panel and cream wraparound top made from clingy jersey—yanking at the fabric to give her belly more room.

She was apparently in no hurry to leave the ladies. ‘You’re a journalist, aren’t you?’ she asked.

‘I am. How are you going with it all? This must be hard,’ Anita ventured.

Brooke looked at Anita via the mirror and murmured, ‘Yeah, I mean … yeah, it’s hard.’

Her tone was tentative but there was definitely an invitation to talk seriously. This was Anita’s opportunity. Fuck protocols. She should warn her about the man she was tied to. But it wouldn’t work to grab this woman by the shoulders and simply screech at her, ‘Run away! You’re not safe! Escape now!’ Anita should rattle off a full list of John Santino’s previous assault charges and accusations. And she should not let Brooke Lester leave that bathroom until she’d described every menacing word Santino had uttered on that recording.