You should always say Canadian first, Mary thought to herself, in case she accidentally asked the question out loud. Canadian first. ‘Fine thanks.’ Mary had managed to not say it. She scanned her busy head for famous Margarets and only one came to mind: English, and dead, thankfully. Mary’s cheeks were wet. She reached into her bag for a tissue and noticed her work-issue Blackberry was buzzing. Her hand shook as she lifted it, but the messages were all from before 2.00 p.m. – a comforting time to be from. One was from Detective Sergeant Minnie Mouse, who’d been unable to locate McKinley’s child sex robot and wanted to do an unannounced joint visit tomorrow if poss – how about 9.00 a.m.? There were messages regarding overdue MAPPA paperwork and incomplete LS/CMI risk assessments and late CPO review reports and absence of up-to-date SWID case notes and new mileage forms and a reminder to put all interviews and visits on VISOR. There were several messages from clients about appointments, and an email from her boss, Catherine:

Mary, I am so sorry, but I can’t get anyone to do the report for John Paul O’Donnell tomorrow. I’d do it, but I’ve got a MAPPA2. If it’s not done, he’ll stay in custody another three weeks. He’s ex-Looked After. Can you nip to Lowfield at 10 and write it at home? I’ve booked you in. CJSW done 12m ago, attached, also SCRO, SWID and CPCC. Maybe defer for DTTO? Or CPO w RDS, poss RAMH to beef it up?

Mary understood every letter, and they comforted her. She could do that, sure. There was no disaster here. No blast radius rippling out already. Tomorrow would just be another Thursday. She’d go to prison for the interview with John Paul and make a surprise joint visit to McKinley on the way. She messaged Catherine and Minnie to let them know, then opened the attachments her boss had sent, calming herself with the personal history of twenty-one-year-old John Paul O’Donnell, a coke-addled ned whose life was way worse than hers, even now, and who she’d be meeting for the first time tomorrow.

She was breathing steadily again when Margaret nudged her with a whisky tumbler. ‘I suggest you drink.’

Mary became aware of the noise around her. Fire sirens had joined the angry orchestra in Charlotte Square. She took the whisky from famous Margaret.

‘I think we’re going to be here a while.’ Margaret sat beside her and took a sip of her own whisky. ‘Don’t know how safe we’re s’posed to feel with just canvas between us and them.’

‘I love your work,’ Mary used her limited powers of speech to say. She prayed that Margaret Whoever didn’t ask which work in particular, because she hadn’t read anything made-up since the world forced her to devour The Da Vinci Code in 2003.