‘Cheers, Nel. Good luck with the hearing.’

Back at her desk, Mary continued what she now realised was the first step in a risk assessment on Derek McLaverty – the gathering of information. He had created a Cuck page (which Mary followed), its profile picture the cover of Macdowall’s book. He’d tagged author Dr Liam Macdowall in the eighty photos he’d taken of the launch, five of which clearly showed her abstinent lifer drinking red wine, all of which were liked by at least ten young women. Groupies, jeez. Victim access was going through the roof.

Liam Macdowall hadn’t showed by 9.14 a.m., so Mary ripped up the first formal warning and typed and printed a second formal warning, knowing and not caring that she’d broken another of her work rules: any correspondence written in anger must go through a twenty-four-hour cooling-off period before printing and sending. No time for that: she had to be at Lowfield by ten for … what again? Bradley Clancy; nice name not guy.

She was almost out the door when: ‘Mary! Mary!’

Fuck, it was the green-haired student social worker. ‘Hi, I’m Hattie,’ she’d chirped when they met. ‘I identify as cis, so my pronouns are she and her.’

This had made Mary’s head hurt, which made her accidentally agree to give Hattie a programme of offence-focused work for her first case: a gambler with autism named Andrew. ‘Can you get those worksheets for me today, Mary? Andy’s very vuln—’

Mary put her headphones on, but the girl was screeching. Jeez, now she was following her out the door, down the exterior stairs.

‘Mary? It’s just, he stole from his mum last week and he hates himself. He’s having panic attacks. He’s in court next week. Mary?’

She made it to her car just in time.

On the way to prison, Mary stopped off in Shawlands, pressed the service buzzer on Macdowall’s block and went straight up. When he didn’t answer her third knock, she put the (first and) second written warning(s) through his door, pausing momentarily before letting go. It was the right thing to do. In five days, Macdowall had breached almost every condition of his licence. He was dangerous. Two strikes, one to go.