‘How could you leave me? Now I have no one. No one. Everyone else always lied or only told part of the truth. I always thought you were different. Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you keep me in the dark? Wasn’t I good enough for your secrets? Didn’t you trust me?’

Silence.

The kettle begins to whistle.

She goes into the kitchen and, reaching for a mug, notices Satnam’s phone sitting on the counter where she has kept it on charge since the night on the bridge. What secrets might it hold? I suppose I should take this to the Dean. He asked me to, so that he could give it to Bikram and Narinder. As she picks it up, she is struck by a thought. What does it matter who has it since no one can open it?

She holds it to her ear, listens into the void, thinks of Satnam lying in her hospital bed and waits for a response, but, of course, there isn’t one. Feeling foolish, suddenly, she puts down the phone, makes her tea and goes over to where her laptop is sitting on the coffee table in the living room.

Opens it and stares at the equation:

dx/dx=rx(1−x)−x, where r−c/e

The average persistence of local populations. The secret to the origins of life. A week or so ago the formula would have struck her with its brilliance and precision. She would have sat down with it, as you might an old friend, and listened to what it had to tell her. But now she is distracted, overcome with the creeping sensation that something bad is about to happen. This must be how animals feel sensing the first intimations of an earthquake, she thinks. Tash comes to mind. The photo at the Valentine’s Day party. Tash and Jessica, vying for the same man. Didn’t Jessica say as much? What if that man had been Mark Ratner? But Satnam? Where is she in any of that? So much she has yet to know or understand.

Picking up her own phone, she sends a text to Satnam, Wake up! She watches Satnam’s phone light up briefly with the notification, then sends another to Tash.

You OK?

No response.

Silence is golden except when it isn’t.

She returns to the equation, doing her best to follow the elegance of it. The Dean comes to mind. That hand on hers, the warm living pulse of it. Oh to be solved! To have all your loose ends tied up. To be complete. What a thought. More wonderful than the secret to the origins of life. The secret to her life.

Restless, she gets up and goes back to the kitchen, thinks of making another cup of tea and cradles the kettle with her hand until the heat makes her pull away. Another equation comes into her head:

Q10 = R2/R1