Had some tame cop called his contact in the tabloid press? Was that how they – the journalist who kept calling and calling, the smart older woman waiting patiently at the end of the street, who was almost certainly one and the same – knew that James Caine had been murdered and that the police had already come for Christian? I had no idea. I had been a journalist myself until the great print plunge. But not that kind of journalist.

Christian, Christian.

I was agonised by the thought of him. The night he had spent, the day he was facing and this ugly new world that I had dragged into our lives. And of course I was tormented by what he must think of me now. That most of all. I wished I could say that it felt unreal – surreal, as the tired old cliché has it – but there was nothing remotely surreal about it. It felt like a new and terrible reality, undeniable and hard. It seemed like the world that I had earned, the world I deserved.

‘Want me to get shot of her?’ Mary asked, brushing the last of the apricot croissant crumbs off her fingers. ‘It’s harassment.’

‘It’s because the dates are getting worse,’ Skyla said. ‘The latest one was particularly bad – Mr Angry. The one who followed the Accidental Dater into the street, screaming abuse, calling her names. It is starting to get dangerous out there. Did you see that one?’

‘Can’t you just tell her – you know – no comment?’ Michael said.

‘I’ll tell the bitch to bog right off!’ Mary said. ‘Shall I, Tara?’

I shook my head, my mouth too tight to speak, the tears suddenly burning my eyes. Mary gave me a quick hug and, leaving Skyla and Michael guarding the door, we went into our office. I watched her as she fired up the Lavazza.

‘Mary?’

‘Huh?’ She was concentrating on the coffee.

‘It’s got nothing to do with the blogger,’ I said. ‘It’s nothing to do with the Accidental Dater. There’s something else. Something worse.’

The machine began to steam. A thick stream of espresso came from a silver spout. Mary adjusted a tiny cup.

‘Sorry?’

‘That journalist at the end of the street? There will be more like her before the day is out.’

Now she looked at me. ‘Why?’

‘There was a man,’ I said. ‘On my business trip.’

‘A man?’

I nodded. ‘In Tokyo. At the conference I went to. There was a man I met there, Mary.’

She shook her head, trying to understand. My friend had always been crazy about Christian. Girls like her – the sweet-natured, home-loving, romantic girls who give their hearts away too easily – always fell for Christian. The good girls. I was never typical for Christian.

‘This man in Tokyo,’ Mary said. ‘You didn’t … you didn’t have sex with him, did you?’ There was a long moment while she adjusted to this new knowledge about me. I saw a flare of something like resentment in her eyes. ‘But what about Christian, Tara?’