‘Hello?’ he said. ‘Hello? Hello? Talk to me, Tara.’ And then the flash of temper.

‘If you don’t cooperate, I’ll tell your husband and he will throw you into the street like the whore we both know you are.’

‘Please don’t,’ I said. ‘Please, James.’

He laughed, as if I had got down on my knees and begged.

‘Come to the hotel. I want you to spend the night. Just like Tokyo.’

I did not recognise my voice. ‘All right.’

‘Dress for dinner, OK?’

I was flooded with terror. What if someone recognised me?

‘Are we going out?’ I said.

‘We’re eating in my room.’ A pause. ‘Sorry I lost my rag for a second there,’ he said, suddenly oozing regret. The abuser who finally gets his way is always all apologies, I understood now. ‘I care about you, Tara. That’s all.’

I watched Uncle Jack and Marlon laughing as Maple snorted, tossed her head and leaned forward in the hope of a treat.

‘When should I come to the hotel?’ I asked.

‘You’ll come when I tell you,’ he said.

I felt empty, and defeated, and sorry, so sorry, as I watched Marlon with Uncle Jack at the far end of the stable. The old man was fishing in the multiple pockets of his threadbare jacket, producing bits of carrot and apple and lumps of sugar like a magician, pulling them out and then handing them to Marlon, who was shyly offering them to Maple, back in her stall now but with the door still open.

My father had just tried to give Marlon his first riding lesson and it had all ended in tears and failure and Marlon’s naked terror of Maple. But already, under Jack’s wise and gentle guidance, Marlon was drying his eyes and smiling as Maple snuffled up the treats he offered in the palm of his hand. Uncle Jack glanced back at me as I called my best friend, not knowing what else to do.

‘James Caine came to my home,’ I told Ginger. ‘While I was up at my parents’ place with Marlon. Told Christian some bullshit story about wanting to make an offer on the house. Christian must have let him in, showed him around.’

‘Does Christian suspect anything?’

‘I don’t know what Christian thinks, Ginger. I’ll find out when I get home. Caine told me to come to his hotel.’

‘If you go to his hotel, then I’m coming with you,’ she said. ‘You have to make him leave you alone. You have to take control. You have to look him in the eye and tell him to back off. Meet me outside my flat tonight. Late. After dinner.’

‘I think he wants me there before then.’

‘Well, fuck what he wants, Tara. Come tonight. Park outside the flat. You don’t have to come in. I want to keep Spike out of it. I’ll tell him – I don’t know – we’re going for a late drink. Spike believes whatever I tell him. Then we’ll go to the hotel together.’