‘Harper didn’t see who was behind the wheel of the car that hit her,’ I say, reaching for a heavy glass pot of hand cream on my bedside table and smoothing it onto my hands with brisk, efficient strokes: the constant scrubbing with abrasive anti-bacterials leaves them chapped and raw. ‘I just wish she’d said as much on her vlog. She made it sound like she could identify whoever crashed into her, which if it was deliberate gives them a bloody good reason to try again. And she knows it, too: she says she did it on purpose to flush them out.’

‘That’s not the stupidest idea I ever heard,’ Tom says.

‘Really?’ I say. ‘You might want to remember that if someone attacks the house with a bazooka while she’s here.’

‘You didn’t have to invite her to stay with us,’ Tom says.

‘She’s my patient,’ I say tersely. ‘She’s only ten days out from major open heart surgery. If I’d let her go home to that miserable little flat her kids would’ve run her ragged and she’d have been back on my table by the weekend.’

Tom turns towards me, propping himself up on one elbow. ‘Millie,’ he says, ‘I appreciate what you’ve done for Harper. I know she’s not your favourite person in the world. But it’s not your fault the Conways are stuck in a shitty rental flat.’

‘Generous of you, but not entirely accurate,’ I say.

‘Still,’ he says. ‘You went out of your way. And you didn’t have to.’

‘I told you—’

‘She’s just a patient. Yes, I know.’ He rolls away from me. ‘I don’t know why you find it so hard to let anyone think you care, Millie,’ he says. ‘I know you. I know you a lot better than you think. And before you start reminding me what a sociopath you are, let me remind you: good people sometimes do bad things for the right reasons. That doesn’t make them bad people. Why are you always so set on convincing everyone you don’t give a damn?’

‘Why are you always so set on convincing me I do?’

He sighs. ‘Millie, I get it, I really do. If you don’t let anyone in, you don’t get hurt. But Harper doesn’t expect anything from you. She just wants to be your friend.’

‘So did Stacey,’ I say.

I screw the lid back onto my expensive hand cream and put it back on my bedside table, and then turn out the light.

For a long while neither of us speaks, and I think Tom has fallen asleep.

‘What are you going to do?’ he asks suddenly into the darkness.

He doesn’t need to elaborate. I told him what happened three days ago when I went to see Stacey at the INN studio.

He was right, and I was wrong.

Stacey played me.