There were envelopes lying on the table with my name on them and I clutched them, crumpling them in my fist. And, oh, God, there was a photograph of me and Greg attached to the fridge by a magnet. I lurched across the room and stood in front of it. Or maybe it didn’t matter if Johnny saw it—did it? I couldn’t think. My brain fizzed and sweat prickled on my forehead. “Jazz?” I said stupidly. “Yes.”

My eyes flicked nervously around. There were so many things in this room that could give me away. For instance, lying on the windowsill, and pushed into the frame, were several postcards bearing my name, or even my name and Greg’s. Lying on the floor, just beyond Johnny’s left foot, there was the bit of paper that had been pushed through my door: “Where are you, what are you doing and why aren’t you answering my calls? RING ME NOW! Gwenxxxx.”

And then, suddenly, there was the sound of the telephone ringing—and if the answering machine picked it up someone would be saying loudly and insistently, “Ellie, Ellie? Pick up, Ellie.”

“Just a minute,” I croaked, and dashed into the hall to pick up the phone.

“Yes?” I said. From where I stood, I could see Johnny examining the photo of me and Greg on the fridge.

“Ellie, it’s me, Gwen.”

“Gwen,” I said idiotically. Then, to cover up, I said it again, neutrally, as if I was explaining my identity to the caller: “Gwen here.”

“What? This is Gwen.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Can I come over?”

“What? Now?”

“The thing is, it’s Daniel, and I wasn’t going to confide in you because of, you know, everything, but then I thought it wasn’t fair on you or me, because after all—”

“Hang on. Sorry. Listen. You have to come over, of course you do, but give me half an hour.”

“If it’s a problem . . .”

“It’s not.” Fuck, was he going to look at the postcards now? “Half an hour, my dearest friend. Got to go. ’Bye.”

I slammed down the phone, but picked it up again and left it off the hook so nobody else could call. Then I tore back to the kitchen.

“I can’t be long,” I said to Johnny, putting my hand on his shoulder so he turned away from the postcards on the window-sill. “Come and sit in the living room to finish your wine.”

“Who’s the guy you were with in that photo?” he asked, as we sat down—he on the sofa and me in the chair, and oh, no, no, no, the chart on the table just beyond him. Couldn’t he see? Even from here, Milena’s name, in capitals and neatly underlined, throbbed in my field of vision.

“Someone I used to know.”

“He looks familiar. Could I have met him?”

“No.”

“Is he why you’re so evasive?”