I had time before I needed to leave for the City, so I made myself instant coffee and had the last fragments of the now-soft cornflakes that Greg used to eat sometimes. The light was flashing on my answering machine but I decided not to listen to the messages. I already knew that half of them would be from Gwen and Mary and they would say, “Where are you?” and “Ring me back as soon as you can,” and “What’s going on?” Then, like a crack addict, I went back to the computer and looked at the email I’d received last night. I didn’t need to, of course. There were still only those three words: “Who are you?” I had no idea what to do next, and although common sense insisted that I leave well alone—leave Frances and Party Animals, leave my snooping and prying, leave my hapless pretense at being someone else, return to the life I’d left behind and try to build a sustainable future—I knew very well that I wasn’t going to. Not yet, anyway. But I couldn’t think of a way to find out the identity of “gonefishing.” Obviously, I couldn’t give him my number, home or mobile. I didn’t want to speak to him, to have him hear my voice. But I had to give him some number to ring me on.

Perhaps I could ask Gwen to talk to him, while pretending not to be Gwen, of course, because I was Gwen. But I dismissed the idea, because I didn’t want to be told—as I most definitely would be—that what I was doing was misguided and wrong, and I should stop at once. I already knew that.

I stared at the screen until the words blurred. I stared at my new Hotmail address: [email protected]. And it came to me: what I should do was simply repeat what I’d already done with my email and get myself a new mobile, whose number I wouldn’t give to anyone except “gonefishing.” When he rang, I wouldn’t answer, but I would have his number on my phone. That was a step forward, at least.