I nodded.

Tara came home as the police were leaving. She tried to listen to all of us at once – Marlon, her dad, me and Buddy barking excitedly – as we crowded around her telling the story.

‘He only chucked a bloody bottle at some motor, didn’t he?’ Leo said.

‘Buddy did tricks for the police lady,’ Marlon said.

‘Sorry,’ I kept saying. ‘I’m so sorry to bring trouble to our home.’

‘Baby,’ she said, her eyes filling up. ‘You’re my home. You and Marlon and this mad, flea-bitten mutt.’

Buddy took the noise up a notch.

‘Listen,’ Tara said, taking my arm and leading me down the corridor, until we stood under her framed magazine cover. ‘I’ve been thinking about it – let’s move.’

‘Move?’

‘Let’s get away from this street. Get out of this house. Start again.’

Why would we would we want to do that, I wondered?

‘All we need is each other,’ she said. ‘You and me and Marlon. That’s all we will ever need.’

And as Tara told me that everything would be fine, and Leo and Marlon left us alone, I could taste the salt as she held my face in her hands and covered it with all those kisses that I had not earned, and all those tears that I did not deserve.

9

Tara

On the front desk first thing next morning, Michael the receptionist fluttered with concern.

‘This gentleman says he’s your first of the day, Tara, but there’s nothing in the book …’

James Caine was sitting in reception, his face impassive.

He looked older, and he looked like a stranger, and that was the thing that made my stomach fall away.

I do not know you.

This man I had shared a bed with, this man who had been inside me, this man who had the power to smash up my life. Who the hell was he? I walked into my office, numb with shock, blanking both of them.

Mary and our new girl-Intern – Skyla – were waiting for me.

‘You need to see this right now,’ Mary said.

Through the glass partition, I could see Caine saying something to Michael that made my receptionist laugh nervously. James Caine was a man, I saw, who acted as if he was at home anywhere. That’s what I had liked about him, I realised, but now the supreme confidence that was indistinguishable from overbearing arrogance made my skin crawl.

‘Skyla found it,’ Mary said.

The girl-Intern looked at me with her huge wide eyes. She had her laptop in her arms. She had struck me as a child when I first saw her. Now I saw she was just young and nervous. But whatever she had found, I did not have time for it now. I glanced again through the glass. James Caine and Michael were laughing together. Michael was as easily charmed as a Labrador.

‘Tell her,’ Mary said.

‘It’s a blog,’ Skyla said, dragging me back. ‘It’s called The Accidental Dater. A woman writing about her experiences with online dating.’ She scrolled through the site. ‘My date with Mr Married Man,’ she read. ‘My date with Mr Roving Eye. My date with Mr Thief.’