“He wrote letters to her, like the one he wrote to me, and then he killed her.”

“Yes.”

“But weren’t you guarding her?”

“We had been. There were complicating factors.”

“But he still got into the house and murdered her.”

“We weren’t exactly guarding her at that point.”

“Why not? Didn’t you take it seriously?”

“Not at all,” he replied, stung. “We took it very seriously, after all-” He stopped abruptly.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“What?”

“Nadia, you should understand that we are taking every precaution to protect you.”

“What? After all, what? Tell me.”

“We knew how serious the letters to Mrs. Hintlesham were,” he muttered, so quietly I had to strain to hear him.

“Why?” He caught my eye and then I realized. The new knowledge flooded over me so I could scarcely breathe. I stared at him. My voice came out in a hoarse whisper. “She wasn’t the first, was she?”

Cameron shook his head.

“Who else?”

“A young woman called Zoe Haratounian. She lived over in Holloway.”

“When?”

“Five weeks ago.”

“How?”

Cameron shook his head again. “Please, Nadia. Don’t. We’re looking after you. Trust us.”

I couldn’t suppress an ugly laugh.

“I know how you must be feeling, Nadia.”

I sank my head into my hands.

“No, you don’t,” I said. “I don’t know what I feel. How do you know?”

“What are you going to do?”

I lifted up my head and glared at him. He meant: Was I going to tell on him? What a baby; a cruel, vain baby.

“I’m going to live,” I said.

“Of course you are.” His voice was placatory and saccharine. He sounded like a doctor talking to a dying patient.

“You think I’m going to die, don’t you?”

“Not at all,” he said. “No way.”

“A madman,” I said. Fear rose in my throat, like bile. Blood roared in my ears. “A killer.”

The doorbell rang. Blushing, smiling, lying Lynne. Cameron said in a low voice: “Please don’t tell anyone about us.”

“Fuck off. I’m thinking.”

ELEVEN

In a twisted way, I almost enjoyed my meeting with Lynne. She had tried to ask Cameron some technical questions about next week’s roster, but he was scarcely able to speak or catch her eye-or my eye. He just stroked his cheek lightly as if he was trying to detect with his fingertips whether there was a revealing mark where I’d hit him. Then he mumbled something about having to get away.

“We’ll talk tomorrow,” I said.

“What?” he said miserably.

“About arrangements,” I said.

He looked sharply at me, then gave a shrug and left. Almost with surprise, I found myself alone with Lynne. I hadn’t even thought of what I would say to her after speaking to Cameron.

“Want a drink?” I asked.

I’m not the sort of person who ever needs a drink, but God, I needed a drink.

“Tea would be great.”

So I bustled off and put the kettle on. I seemed to be always making tea for her, as if I was her grandmother. Just a mug and tea bag for her. In the back of a cupboard I found a bottle of whiskey that somebody had once bought in duty-free for me as a present. I splashed some into a tumbler and topped it up from the cold tap. We walked out into the garden. Although it was now the early evening, it was still fiercely hot.

“Cheers,” I said, clinking my whiskey against her mug and taking a sip of my drink, which stung the back of my throat and I could feel sizzling all the way down the inside of my body into my tummy. The garden was a disaster, of course, but just because it was so overgrown, it felt like a refuge from all that horrible stuff outside, which I could still hear: the traffic, music from a sound system in a flat along the road. We walked across to a corner where there was a plant that looked like a bush trying to become a tree. It was covered in cone-shaped clusters of purple flowers. White and brown butterflies were fluttering around it like tiny scraps of paper blown about by the wind.

“I love to stand out here in the evenings,” I said. Lynne nodded back at me. “I mean in the summer. I don’t do it in the rain. I like looking at the flowers and wondering what their names are. Do you know anything about gardening?” Lynne shook her head. “Pity.” I took another sip. Now for it. “I owe you an apology,” I said, just as she was lifting the mug to her lips, testing the heat of the liquid with that delicate first sip. She looked puzzled.

“What for?”

“Yesterday I was asking you whether all this-I mean all the protection-wasn’t a bit much. I wondered why you were doing this. But in fact I knew.”

Lynne froze in the act of lifting the mug of tea to her mouth. I continued.

“You see, a funny thing happened. Yesterday at the children’s party I got talking to the nanny of one of the children. And then completely by chance I discovered something. She worked for, I mean used to work for, a woman called Jennifer Hintlesham.” I had to give Lynne credit. She gave no visible reaction at all. She wouldn’t catch my eye, that was all. “You have heard of her?” I said.

Lynne took some time to answer. She looked down at her tea.

“Yes,” she said, so quietly I could hardly catch the words.

A thought-actually more a feeling than a thought-occurred to me. I remembered that strange sensation when I’d gone somewhere with Max and he would say something that would make me realize that he’d been there before with an earlier girlfriend. And, although I knew it was stupid, things would go a bit gray and sour.

“Did you do this with her? With Jennifer? Did you stand in her garden with her, drinking tea?”

Lynne looked trapped. But she couldn’t run away. She had to stay here, looking after me.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “It felt bad not telling you, but there were strict instructions. They thought it might be traumatic for you.”

“Did Jennifer know about the one before?”

“No.”

I felt that my mouth was flapping open. I was aghast. I just couldn’t think what to say.

“I… you lied to her as well” was all I finally managed.

“It wasn’t like that,” said Lynne, still not catching my eye. “It was a decision made from the beginning. They thought it would be bad to panic you.”

“And to panic her. I mean Jennifer.”

“That’s right.”

“So-let me get this straight in my mind-she didn’t know that the person sending her letters had already killed somebody.”

Lynne didn’t reply.

“And she couldn’t make decisions about how to protect herself.”

“It wasn’t like that,” Lynne said.

“In what way wasn’t it like that?”

“This wasn’t my decision,” Lynne said. “But I know that they’ve been acting for the best. What they thought would be the best.”

“Your strategy for protecting Jennifer-and the first one as well, Zoe-it didn’t quite work out.” I took a gulp of the whiskey, which made me cough. I wasn’t really used to spirits. I felt so miserable and frightened and sick. “I’m sorry, Lynne, I’m sure that this is awful for you, but it’s worse for me. This is my life. I’m the one who’s going to die.”

She moved closer toward me.

“You’re not going to die.”

I recoiled. I didn’t want these people to touch me. I didn’t want their sensitivity.

“I don’t understand, Lynne. You’ve been sitting here with me for days. You’ve been here in the house, drinking my tea, eating my food. I’ve talked to you about my life. You’ve seen me barefoot, slouched on the sofa; half-naked, wandering around. You’ve seen me believing you, trusting you. I can’t understand it. What were you thinking?”

Lynne stayed silent. I didn’t speak, either, for a time. I reached for my whiskey and sipped at it.

“Do you think I’m being stupid?” I said. “It’s just that I have this problem with everybody knowing something about me and me not knowing it. What would you feel, if it was you?”