“So Damon Blundy and this Nicki woman were having an affair, and they’d split up by March seventh?” Liv said. “That sounds about right.”

“What? What do you know about it?” Charlie asked her. You manipulative liar.

“I know that by April this year Damon Blundy was having an affair with Paula Riddiough.” It was a few seconds before Liv noticed the effect her words had had. “What? Why are you all staring at me weirdly? Oh, come on, everyone knows about Damon Blundy and Paula Privilege!”

“Whatever you know, why the fuck haven’t you told me?” said Gibbs, red in the face.

“I’ve been preoccupied. We both have, with our . . .” Liv stopped and bit her lip.

“With your fake breakup?” Charlie suggested helpfully.

“Let’s not get sidetracked,” said Simon. “Liv, tell us.”

“I’m sorry, I thought we all knew,” she said shakily. “All my Twitter friends know. Blundy and Paula had a big row on Twitter after Margaret Thatcher died—insulting and mocking each other in rhyming couplets, copying the exact metrical structure of The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson.”

“And Tiddler,” said Simon.

Liv looked shocked, then giggled. “How do you know about Tiddler?”

“I didn’t until recently. Until I read the Twitter argument between Paula Riddiough and Damon Blundy.”

“He likes to be thorough in his research,” said Charlie. “Plus, he loves books about fish.”

Simon’s face tightened, as she’d known it would. “Moby Dick’s not about a fish,” he said. “A whale isn’t a fish.”

“Tiddler’s heavenly,” Liv gushed. She was in a remarkably sunny mood for someone who had recently terminated a passionate love affair. “Morally, it’s the opposite of ‘The Boy Who Cried Wolf.’ Making up stories isn’t bad—it’s the only thing that can save you. That’s the message.”

“Interesting that your idea of ‘heavenly’ is a book that makes the case for lying,” Charlie muttered.

“Can we get back to Blundy and Riddiough?” Gibbs snapped.

“If you followed their Thatcher witch fight, you can’t have failed to notice how it ended. Don’t you remember?” Liv asked Simon.

“Not word for word, no.”

“We don’t all spend our days browsing Twitter,” said Charlie.

“There’s a bit in Tiddler, near the end, where Tiddler says, ‘I was lost, I was scared, but a story led me home again.’ The other fish all say, ‘Oh no, it didn’t,’ and Tiddler says, ‘Oh yes, it did.’ Immediately after their spat on Twitter—maybe ten minutes later—Paula Riddiough tweeted Damon Blundy and said, ‘I was lost, I was scared, but a Tory led me home again.’ Blundy tweeted back, ‘Oh no, he didn’t,’ to which she replied, ‘Oh yes, he did!’” Liv looked at Gibbs, who was staring at her open-mouthed. “I read that and I thought, ‘They must be having an affair.’”