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‘You have CCTV outside? That would be great. Can I see it?’ I had remembered to put on my best smile for the barman, might even have flirted a little, reasoning to myself that it was all in a good cause, that I could have an extra-long shower later.

‘Oh, sorry. I don’t have the key.’

I had stopped flirting then. ‘You don’t have the . . .’

‘The key. It’s in the manager’s office. The CCTV, I mean. You’ll need to speak to the manager.’

‘And the manager is . . .’

‘Oh, she’s away. She’s been in Crete for a fortnight.’

‘Of course she is.’ I had dropped my head, vaguely remember counting to myself. Then tried again for a smile. ‘When will she be back?’

‘Ah, Sunday. Yeah. Sunday.’ He had leaned in, had given me a well-practised smile. ‘Gives you an excuse to come back and see me again.’

Dave has moved now. Has his phone in his hands, is cradling it like it’s a newborn infant. I wonder distantly who he’s calling. Reason that it’s probably Imogen. I wonder if he knows what is coming?

Then Lydia’s door opens. The Saturday crowd takes a collective breath, heads spinning like they are on platters, until the entire room is looking at Dave. It’s impossible to keep a secret in a newsroom.

‘Dave?’ Lydia’s voice is piano-wire tight. ‘Could I speak to you for a second?’

No one moves. No one breathes.

For a moment it seems that Dave will ignore her, that his last act of defiance here will be a refusal to be fired, a blatant two fingers up to the establishment. How would that work, I wonder? Will they have to get the police to come in, drag him out? But, after long moments, he looks up. Stares at Lydia as if he’s never seen her before. Then begins to stand. It is excruciating. It is like watching the earth’s crust tear itself apart. Dave pushes back the chair, slowly, painfully, then just stands there, like he has no idea what to do next. Then he begins to lean, and for one bizarre moment it looks like he is going to take in with him the gym bag that he keeps tucked under the desk. I wonder what he’s thinking? If his reasoning is that he wants to make a clean break for it, once the axe has fallen. Then he stops, thinks better of it, and turns towards Lydia, movements treacle-slow.

We are all staring, open and frankly now, and Lydia glances around the office. ‘All right, thank you. Everyone feel free to get on with your work.’

She steps back, allowing Dave to pour past her, then closes the door firmly behind them.

And now we are left. Waiting.

There are little breaks of conversation, whispers, the occasional laugh, quickly hidden away.

I watch the office door. I hate this.

Then a parp of sound, my mobile phone lighting up. A text from my mother.
Was wondering if you fancied meeting me for lunch tomorrow? Just the two of us.
I stare at it. Thinking. It would be easier to say no. We are what we are. What is the point of pretending that we are otherwise? I study the words, the shape of them on the small screen. How cautious they look. How unsure. And I think of Carla Lowe and of Emily’s mother, and how much they would give to be able to do this, even to be awkward and strained with their children. But that is gone for them now, will never come back.

I move my thumb quickly across the keypad.
Sounds lovely.

I have just pressed Send when the phone rings, startling me. For a moment I think it is my mother, that she has seen the reply, is calling to work out the details. Then I see the name. Steve Lowe.

Shit! I don’t want to talk to him today. I really don’t want to talk to him today.

I stare at it, taking a moment to wonder how the hell he got my personal number. I should answer, because no matter what else he is, he is still a father who has lost his son. And I’m about to, I swear, when Lydia’s office door opens.

I reject the call.

Dave has aged, in the intervening minutes, looks like he has been crying. He walks out with a shuffling gait – dead man walking – back to his desk, pulls out his gym bag and with a broad reach gathers up the paraphernalia that has gathered across the table top, dumping it into the bag.

‘Dave?’

They are all watching him, the entire newsroom a bunch of meerkats peering at their fallen brother. The silence is thick, seems to fill up your lungs.

He looks up at me, gives me an uncomfortable smile. ‘He did it, anyway.’

‘Who?’ I ask, even though I’m fairly sure I already know the answer.

‘Steve Lowe. He complained to the owners. I’m out.’

‘Dave, I . . .’ I cast around, looking for something useful to say, but he waves me off.

‘Forget it.’ Dave jams the zip closed on his bag and turns towards the door. Doesn’t look back.

I sit there, sharing in the stunned silence. I’ve never liked the guy, not really, not if I’m being totally honest. But I feel sorry for him. I watch as his figure vanishes behind the warped glass, imagine that I can hear his footsteps heavy on the stairs. I push myself up. I never liked him, but no one should be all alone at a time like this.

I don’t look around, even though I know that Lydia is standing there, can feel her eyes on me. Hurry to the door, pull it open. Can hear the downstairs door slam. I take the steps quickly, wondering what the hell I’ll say to him if I do catch him. I’m useless at this. I’m at the bottom and pulling the door, scanning the street, and then I stop.

Aden is standing on the other side of the road. Is sheltering under the outer porch of the glass-fronted offices, his jacket done up to his chin.

I stare at him, trying to make my mind piece this together. See him see me. Give a half-hearted wave. Now I can’t remember what I came out here for, because all I can see is Aden, standing there, waiting for me. I hang in the doorway and think that I don’t have my coat with me, that I can’t go out there because I’ll get soaked. I think about my father, and I think how people are never what you think and how you have to be careful, otherwise they’ll hurt you, and I look at Aden and I know exactly why it is he is here. And I stand there, and I think: what is it you are going to do? Are you going to spend the rest of your life running from your father’s lies? Is that going to dictate the shape of the rest of your life? And the stubbornness, the iron, rises up in me, and now I am out of the door and down the steps, the rain battering against my skull so hard that it hurts, winding its way under my collar. I cross the street, sloshing through the standing water with my insubstantial pumps. And Aden is standing there, waiting, a fist-shaped bruise wrapping itself around his eye, looking so afraid he looks like he might cry, and that thought makes me want to laugh. So I stand on my tiptoes and I kiss him.

IMOGEN SAT ON
the sofa in her office, had pulled her knees up into her, her head dipped low. Stared at the lavender walls. A sudden thought, that she hated lavender. She was swaying, was only dimly aware of it, her attention more drawn by her position, wondering if this was the shape she had formed in the womb. But then, surely not, not when there were two of them. Surely Mara, for all her tiny stature, her weak heart, took up the lion’s share of the space. That was how it had been afterwards anyway, so why would it have been any different then? She unfolded her legs.

Her office door was closed. Imogen stared at it. She was aware that she was staring a lot, but it seemed there was little else to do. She had come here, had fled Ward 11 before Mara’s return, had come here because she had nowhere else to go.

It must be getting late now. The thought was dim and distant, and she glanced around vaguely, as if expecting a window to have miraculously appeared in this room that was a cupboard in everything but name. She used to think it was cosy in here. Now it seemed absurd, airless.

Natalie’s words had frozen her, had stoppered up time.
We think Mara has been hurting Amy.
Imogen had stood, glued to the ground, even though it seemed that the ground was moving beneath her.

They were wrong. There was no other possible interpretation. They were simply wrong.

Imogen had been aware of movement, of feeling starting to trickle back into her hands, her feet. A backing away. ‘That’s bullshit.’ The word tasted strange in her mouth. She had tried it again, a tiny thrill at the power of it. ‘That is utter bullshit.’

‘Please,’ said Natalie. ‘Look, sit down.’

‘I don’t want to sit.’

All sotto voce, Amy still curled up, breathing soft sleeping breaths. Imogen had looked at her, had felt her heart squeeze itself in her chest.

‘Please, I understand what this must look like. But you need to listen to me.’ Natalie had taken hold of her hand, held it fast. ‘We have been concerned for a little while. Originally the doctors were looking at encephalitis or meningitis, yes? But her symptoms, they just aren’t what we would expect to see . . .’

‘So, based on that, you’re assuming my sister is an abuser?’

‘No, not based on that. Look, Amy had her initial seizure and was admitted, yes? Now, after the seizure, what we saw was that she didn’t settle as we would have expected her to. Her temperature was fluctuating, her breathing erratic, she seemed agitated. We wanted to run blood tests, but your sister was reluctant. So the doctors backed off – but I’ve got to tell you, Im, that raised some eyebrows: a mother not wanting the tests that could provide answers for her child.’

‘She said the doctors didn’t want them,’ said Imogen.

‘They did. But we didn’t want to jump to conclusions, thought: okay, she’s worried about Amy getting stuck, unnecessary pain. Not too unusual. So we ran a heart-trace instead, and what we saw were spikes that were broad, way broader than they should have been. It suggested one of two things – a cardiac defect . . .’

‘Or?’

‘Or that she had been given some form of medication. So we ran toxicology. And we asked Mara: was there any way Amy could have got hold of medications, antidepressants maybe?’

‘Okay . . .’

‘Your sister didn’t like that question at all. In fact, she got pretty angry. Said there was no way, that no one in the family was on anything like that. And after that she got strange, jittery. Wouldn’t leave Amy’s side, even to go to the toilet.’

‘She’s a good mother, her daughter is sick.’

‘I checked Amy myself, at about eleven o’clock. Everything was fine, she was perfectly stable. I left the room. I left Mara alone with her, and five minutes later she crashed.’

‘But you can’t predict a seizure. You don’t know when it’s going to happen.’

‘No, fine. But after the seizure – bearing in mind that this one was a bad one, that we nearly lost her – after they stabilised her, the doctors got the toxicology results back. Imogen, they found amitriptyline in Amy’s bloodstream.’

Imogen had reached out, had gripped the metal frame of Amy’s bed.

‘There is no earthly reason why Amy should have an antidepressant in her bloodstream. None at all. Her symptoms, the temperature, seizures, the erratic breathing – all of these things are consistent with an overdose of amitriptyline.’ Natalie was still holding her hand, holding her up now. ‘Imogen, your sister’s patterns of behaviour, the drug in Amy’s bloodstream, it’s suggesting that we may be looking at Factitious Disorder by proxy.’

It seemed that the words wouldn’t come, that they had lodged in Imogen’s throat, cut off the air. ‘Munchausen’s by proxy?’

‘We think so,’ said Natalie. ‘Now, obviously, we can’t take any steps until we’re sure, hence the cameras. But, I mean, you’re a psychologist. Have you seen any signs of this? Anything?’

Imogen wanted to cry. She leaned her head back against the sofa, stared at the walls of her box-like office, those stupid lavender walls, and willed the tears to come. But there was nothing, just this dull ringing in her ears. She was trying to think, trying to unravel it all. Because surely, there at the heart of this twisted ball of yarn was the answer. But it seemed that her brain simply would not work. There was a memory, sitting just out of reach – the feeling of a hand flat on her back – but she just couldn’t get to it, couldn’t get beyond swimming in this sea of lavender in this airless room.

Then the door opened.

Imogen looked up. Saw Dave standing in the doorway.

There was a spike of something then, the return of the pain in the back of her head, the crack as it had landed against the wall, and a jolt of fear. She pushed herself up, further into the sofa, as if that way she could crawl away from him. But there would be no crawling away. There were no windows in her small room. Only a door. And he was standing in it.

Dave was watching her, a look in his eyes that she simply didn’t recognise, and Imogen stared at him as at a stranger, spared a moment to wonder where he had gone, the man she had slept next to for the last eight years. Had he vanished – poof! – in a puff of smoke, or had it been slower, a gradual decline to this, and she had simply missed it? He wasn’t saying anything, was just watching her, and Imogen could feel her heart beating out of her chest. And then she felt something else.

Anger.

Anger for the pain in her head, and for the years of living on wafer-thin ice. For the lies, so many lies that it seemed she no longer knew which way was up and which was down. For his name on her sister’s phone, again and again. For making her afraid.

Imogen pushed herself up to standing.

‘Are you going to kill me this time?’ She seemed to have grown taller, her voice different from normal, all spikes and hard edges.

Dave took a step back. Was staring at her, like now he didn’t know her. ‘What? I, no, of course not – no. I’m . . . sorry. I’m so sorry, Im.’ He gestured to her head, a useless flapping motion. ‘I can’t believe what I did. I didn’t mean to. I really didn’t. It was an accident. I haven’t slept. I just . . . I don’t know what came over me. I’m so sorry.’

Imogen stared at him, not speaking.

‘I just . . .’ He was crying, slender diamond tears slipping down his cheeks. ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I try. I do, I swear. I’m trying to make this work, but I just don’t know how.’