I read, my spirits sinking. I felt for this woman, whoever she was, I truly did, but I couldn’t deny that I also felt for myself, and what her horrible experiences meant for my world, and my family, and everything that I had worked for. But as I read the words of the Accidental Dater, I saw how what I had built could all come crashing down.

Fear paralyses you for long painful, desperate, terrifying minutes but you fight – literally fight – your way out of that hellish room and by the time you are out on the street – an unfamiliar neighbourhood, too late for the Tube, no cabs to be had – there are these marks on your skin. On your arm and the top of your thighs and the back of your neck where one of them held you down with your face in a carpet that smelled of sweat and beer and weed and pizza. The marks on your skin are brown, yellow and black, as round as freshly minted coins. They are bruises that are left by fingertips.

‘I have to say that it has the ring of horrible truth,’ I told Sophie. ‘Sadly.’

I heard her curse quietly. ‘You see the problem?’ she said. ‘We are meant to be helping women, Tara – not enabling their tormentors!’

‘Oh, yes, I get it,’ I said, although I felt that Sophie and I had very different problems now. Sophie’s problem was negative stories about my company appearing online, while my problem was feeding my family if my business went under. Sophie was worried about angry hashtags on social media and I was worried – worried sick, to tell you the truth, worried sleepless, so worried that I thought I might be getting an ulcer – about how Christian and I were going to pay our mortgage if there was no money coming in. Sophie was concerned about image, and I was rather more concerned about how my family would pay the bills if my business fell to bits. Sophie cared about me – I don’t doubt it for a second – but we had very different priorities now.

‘I’ll be in touch,’ Sophie said, hanging up, although I have to say it didn’t feel like she would be in touch again any time soon. Angel Eyes and I were both toxic now.

Phil was still watching me in the rear-view mirror. He looked at me a bit differently these days, perhaps wondering if he would have a job by the end of the week. We were arriving at our destination but the entrance to the mews was deserted.

‘Nobody here today,’ Phil said cheerily, meaning the press, with some of the old avuncular Phil style.

‘Maybe they’ve had enough of me,’ I said.

Outside the front door of the office there was a recycling bin that shouldn’t have been there because all of our bins were out the back, a small green food waste caddy with ISLINGTON in white letters on the front. I looked back at the end of the mews to confirm that Phil was gone and then I opened up the waste caddy. Inside there was a fat brown envelope, designed for A4 paper, that had been folded in half. I took it out and let myself into Angel Eyes, turning off the burglar alarm, and then I went into my office and placed the brown envelope on my desk. I already knew what was in there but I peeled it open anyway.