She leaned forward, and at that moment there was a ring at the front door. She straightened. “That’ll be my cab.” She gave me a rueful smile. “To be continued,” she said, and with that she was gone, tossing her gorgeous coat over her shoulders, picking up her bag, throwing me a pleading smile, running up the stairs. I heard the front door slam.

After she had gone I stayed where I was. I was trying to breathe. I felt as though I had knives in my chest and each small inhalation hurt. It was several minutes before I felt able to get up, but even then I stood in the middle of the room, not sure what to do next. Thoughts hissed in my brain. Everything was murky and confused.

But I had come here to work and work I did: I went through the brochure very carefully and marked it up for the printers. When Beth arrived, I gave it to her to check. I had worried that she might be resentful, but Beth never resented anything that made her workload even lighter than it was already. While she leafed through it and talked on the phone and made tea, I filed the few remaining invoices and receipts; I answered calls when they came in; I even tidied the room a bit. And all the time the phone was in my pocket with its single missed call. The more I tried to put it out of my mind, the more it occupied it, so that by the middle of the day it was all I could think about. That, and Frances’s secret, the one that had been rotting away inside her and was now out in the open.

I couldn’t call the number because what would I say? Yet if I didn’t call, what had been the point of going to all that effort? Maybe I should try and match the number with one in Milena’s various address books. I started and quickly gave it up as impossible.

I went out to the deli down the road and bought lunch for the two of us: panini stuffed with roasted vegetables, green pesto and melted mozzarella. While we ate, Beth asked me about my life and quickly shifted the conversation back to hers. We were both more comfortable with that and she told me about the failings of her current boyfriend.