And so you’re going to do . . . what? Just hate yourself as usual and continue to behave like a self-destructive idiot?

“You’re wrong, Mum,” says Sophie. “‘Bloody’ is not a swear word. Neither is ‘Oh God.’ Alexis in my class, her mum won’t let her say ‘Oh God.’ If she says it and her mum hears, she loses her computer privileges for a week.”

“I’m not bothered about ‘Oh God,’ but ‘bloody’ is a swear word.”

“What about ‘damn’?” Ethan asks.

Oh God. “Can we not debate rude words? Ethan, this test—if you got four out of five questions right, you’d have gotten some marks. If you got no marks, you can’t have gotten any right.”

“I did,” he squeaks indignantly. “One of them was, ‘What’s your name?’ I put, ‘Ethan Daniel Clements.’”

“That is his name,” says Sophie, yawning.

“OK, there’s some mistake or misunderstanding involved,” I say, relieved. “After supper, you can show me the test and we’ll sort it out. All right?” Ethan nods. I tick it off in my head: unhappy son, happier. Toast and juice delivered to living room—already ticked off, eaten, drunk, sticky plastic tumblers and plates bearing crusts and crumbs on the floor. Nearly free. If I have to wait much longer to call Kate Zilber, I’ll explode. She was away all yesterday and today on some kind of training course for head teachers. I managed to persuade Izzie to pass on a message, and was told grudgingly when I picked up the children this afternoon that I could call Kate on her mobile anytime after 4:45 P.M.

I glance at my watch. Dead on a quarter to five. I don’t care if I look too eager: I want to know the name of the man who’s been following me. I haven’t seen him in the playground since Monday, which is perhaps not surprising. Until I’ve spoken to Kate and heard whatever she can tell me about him, I won’t know if I want to tell Adam or the police.

I pull the door closed as I leave the living room and head for the phone farthest away from Sophie’s and Ethan’s ears, the one in the spare room. My right hand seems to start to sweat the moment I pull the scrap of paper with Kate’s number on it out of my pants pocket.

Two doors between me and the children now: one pulled to and one firmly closed. This is how habitual liars measure their safety: by the number of closed doors between them and their loved ones. “Answer, answer,” I hiss as I listen to the rings, feeling helpless. I can’t imagine that Kate Zilber has ever been as keen for someone to answer their phone as I am now.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Kate. It’s Nicki Clements.”

“Hi, Nicki—Izzie said you’d probably call. Is there a problem?”