I called Lucy again but it went through to voicemail.

Ten seconds later, a message from her pinged through:

Sorry am in a meeting. Is everything OK? All under control here, no need to rush back, but I’ve been SO WORRIED about you!

I replied straightaway:

I’m fine, but you submitted an Appetito review? Without talking to me about it 1st??

Yes! I didn’t know what was going on and you’d missed the deadline. I didn’t want you to get in trouble with Miles so wrote something just in case. You weren’t replying to my messages and I didn’t know what else to do. I’m so relieved you’re ok!! xxx

While I was thinking about how to reply, she messaged again:

What happened? Is there anything I can do to help? I’m happy to keep things ticking over, but it’d be helpful to know how long you might be away xxx

I tried calling her again, but it went straight to voicemail. Lucy was of the generation where phone calls were for emergencies only, but I drew the line at firing someone via a text, if I could help it.

Lucy, I really need to talk to you properly about this. Please call me as soon as you can.

No reply.

I felt another stab of guilt. Lucy had been clearly worried about me – and about what my sudden disappearance would mean for her own job. Deciding to write and submit a review off her own back showed how stressed she must have been. I’d handled this horribly, and it was completely unfair to leave Lucy feeling responsible for writing reviews on top of managing everything else. By failing to speak to her properly, I’d inadvertently forced her to become Nora Sharp – even if as far as she knew, it was only temporary. I had to tell her that I’d resigned from the paper, and I wasn’t coming back, so she could speak to Miles and decide whether she wanted to keep Nora going, or whether we were going to formally lay her to rest.

Would a voicemail do?

If she didn’t call me back soon, it would have to.

If nothing else, I needed to warn her about the stalker who’d crawled back out of the shadows. She had nothing to hide when it came to being Nora, she’d be able to talk to the police about it, let the newspaper know. Get it sorted once and for all.

I’d wait one more day for her to call me, then decide what to do.

Lucy had recently graduated when she contacted me. She’d studied marketing and journalism, and was looking for an internship. I was impressed with how succinctly she expressed her respect for my work, and the areas in which she hoped she could prove useful. Given that I still felt like a lost child bumbling about in a maze of adulting, I was very tempted to consider her offer. Except that I wasn’t sure what I was meant to be doing half the time. I was hardly in a position to be mentoring or managing anyone else.