“I wouldn’t be surprised, but don’t mention I said anything, will you?”

“Of course not. I promise.”

This was wrong, using her like this. Lauren was glad when Fiona smiled, seeming relieved.

Lauren sipped her coffee.

“You know,” Fiona said a moment later. “The only time I ever saw Casey seem not fake, it was with her daughter–”

“Casey has a daughter?” Lauren cut in.

Fiona arched her eyebrow. “I thought you worked with Scott?”

“I do. He never mentioned Casey having a daughter.”

“Yes, a daughter and an ex-husband. Poor man.”

“Poor man? Why?”

Fiona looked around, as though making sure nobody was eavesdropping. “He came to the book club once. Livid. Apparently Casey had picked up their daughter from school and taken her to the cinema without his permission. He has full custody. Which is unusual, isn’t it? We can say what we want, about how modern it is, but it’s unusual for a man to have full custody. I’m not saying it’s always the case. But I’m telling you. I saw how vicious she is. She was always putting me down, making me feel small.”

Lauren’s mind went to dark places, as she thought about a woman like Casey having a child, an innocent who’d never question her motives, who’d do whatever she asked.

“I’m sorry,” Lauren said. “That’s not okay.”

“Thank you.” Fiona smiled, a real I’m making a new friend smile, and Lauren felt like crap. “Anyway, Markus comes storming in, ready for a fight. Casey tried to play it cool at first, all nice, but then she snapped. She knocked my coffee over when she jumped to her feet. She was angrier than I’d ever seen anyone, I swear. She was screaming at him, calling him every name you can think of, C and P and F and all the rest of it.”

“And then what happened?” Lauren asked.

“Markus grabbed Casey and whispered something in her ear. And then – like magic – she stopped. She calmed down. She collected her things and left, and that was that. It was weird.”

Stopping Casey. Like magic. It sounded good. “What did he say?”

“No idea. It must’ve been something serious. Maybe he threatened to call the police. Whatever it was, it worked. Markus never came to the book club again. Casey must’ve behaved.”

Lauren picked up her coffee, took a long sip. So that was her next step. The husband.

She was thinking about possible ammunition.

The question was, who would she use it against?

Scott or Casey?

25

SCOTT

“I didn’t know she had an ex-husband,” Scott said.

Lauren gawped at him from the other side of the desk. It was Monday lunchtime; the weekend had been predictably evil, especially when Casey discovered Scott had pissed himself in the cage. She’d loved that, giggling in that weird psycho way of hers. After that: more games, more so-called fun, more torture, more hate. Scott didn’t let himself think about it at work.

You really are a coward.