Eye of the Beholder

PART ONE

It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.

—Henry David Thoreau

AFTER

1

AT EMBANKMENT STATION, THE OVERHEAD lights cast everything in a sickly yellow glow. It’s crowded in the passageway and a biting wind blows in off the night-dark Thames, dragging with it a smell of exposed mud and rotting river weed and God knows what else. Beneath my feet the ground shakes as a Tube train rumbles through a tunnel and I think of the hollows gouged in the rock below, wonder how deep they go. How far, if the earth cracked open, I would fall.

I shove my fists into my parka pockets. Stop it, Maddy. Just focus on getting home. Stupid idea, going out. Should have stayed in the flat, on my own. Out of harm’s way.

A pack of Chelsea FC fans exit the barriers and flood into the passageway. They’re as jubilant as if they’d played and won the game themselves, tossing war cries back and forth, their baying amplified in the enclosed space and echoing off the tiled walls. Hunkering further into my coat, I try to tune them out and push on, but there are so many people that we are bottlenecked, and I’m slowed to a shuffle, forced to a halt. I really don’t need this right now. One supporter hollers particularly loudly and a man ahead of me turns to stare at the commotion.

It’s him.

Shock explodes in my stomach. I reel back.

It can’t be; I’m imagining it. It must be a trick, an illusion, like all the other times a flash of an orange scarf at a man’s neck caught my eye or an American accent sparked hope of a miracle, only to plunge me back into pain.

I almost daren’t look again. Yet I can’t help myself. He has a beard now and wears a black knit hat and a shearling jacket I haven’t seen before. But that’s just window dressing. His height, his coloring, the way the jacket hangs from his shoulders, how he tilts his head to one side in curiosity—I’d recognize that movement anywhere. My heart pounds and there’s a disjunction, as if I’ve stepped outside myself. It is him. I don’t know how, but it is.

Before I know it, I’m calling out. Scott!

He doesn’t hear me over the fans’ hullabaloo. I try again. Scott!

Other people are looking. He isn’t; he has turned away. He’s with two guys and all three have their backs to me. I don’t recognize them, but of course I wouldn’t. I never met any of his friends other than Angela.

The Chelsea supporters are still blocking my path. I try to squeeze through but can’t. There’s a jangling in my ears, my breath is coming hard. Excuse me, I say. Let me through!

One of the Blues holds his scarf aloft and chants beerily in my face, Who are ya? Who are ya?

I crane my head to see past. Scott and his friends are exiting into the street. The crowd closes and I lose sight of them in the jumble of heads. I’ve got to get out of here. I can’t lose him all over again. I struggle against the press of bodies, but it’s useless. I’m trapped. There’s no choice but to move with the throng.

Finally I’m swept out of the station and dumped on the pavement. I scour the street, left, right, behind. There! Beneath Hungerford Bridge: a dark archway. A door, a bouncer, girls in thin heels and thinner dresses. The thud of music. He and his friends are going in.

They have paid and pushed through the turnstile by the time I get to the club, and the chipped inner door is closing behind them. I push past the bouncer to the front desk, reaching for my bag and credit card. My bag isn’t there. Shit. I slap at my pockets wildly. Phone, money, keys, all gone. I should retrace my steps. But there’s no time.

Please, I plead with the woman selling tickets. My bag’s been stolen. She gives me a disbelieving look from under her fringe. Desperation helps me improvise. I point at the door. My friends are inside. I can get them and they’ll come back and pay for me.

Sorry, hon. She pops her gum, already moving her attention to the next in line. People are backing up behind me, tuts and murmurs building.

The bouncer looms. Stand aside.

No, no, no. This can’t be happening. I step out of the line, mumbling an apology, which placates him. Think, quick. Through the gridded safety glass of the door I can make out three wobbly shadows walking down a corridor. Music and voices leak in beats around the edges of the frame. Any second now he’ll be swallowed by the crowd and I’ll never find him.

I can’t take that chance. As soon as the doorman’s attention is elsewhere, I press myself up against a girl who has just paid and piggyback through the turnstile.

Hey! calls the ticket clerk.

Oi, you! yells the bouncer.

But I’m in.

It’s too much at once—heat and noise and light, reverberation and movement and smells. Green lasers sharding through darkness. Bodies corralled like cattle. Two hundred people? A thousand? A strobe light strafes, shattering reality into a series of movie stills. The music is so loud it drums in my chest, DOOF DOOF DOOF DOOF, overruling my heartbeat, making it race.

Where is he? I surge into the mass, pushing hard against the resistant friction of arms and torsos. Someone else’s sweat streaks the back of my hand. I scan the faces near me. Blank, all strangers. Where is he? The music, the lights, fracture everything. I didn’t stop to check my coat and I’m way too hot, panic-level hot. It’s hard to think.

I whip my head around, trying to take in the room. Across the floor are two stages, one holding the DJ, the second more people dancing. The dancers’ stage is raised maybe ten feet above the ground—from there I’d be able to see more. I drive on through the crowd.

Somehow, I make it to the stage. The side steps are rammed with people. I climb the first couple, but the final rise is too high and, like in the station tunnel, there’s no space to move. Someone slams into me and I stagger. I can’t do it. Tears burn. A young man on the stage looks down and sees me floundering. He gestures—Coming up?—and elbows a neighboring guy to help. I lift both arms. Strong hands grasp, there’s a wrench, and then I’m standing on the top level.

The music is even louder up here, punching into my body. My eardrums jump. There’s no time to thank my helpers. Where is he? I press toward the front of the stage until I’m right at the edge. Better: I can see maybe two-thirds of the dance floor.

I search left, right, close to the stage, farther away. Most faces are turned up to the DJ booth, a congregation exultant before a secular altar. That guy—in the center. Is that Scott? He turns between passes of the light. Not him.

The music reaches a tachycardic peak and my heart has no choice but to follow, hammering to a frenzy. A laser flares, searing my retinas. I’m momentarily blinded. I blink to clear my vision. A commotion breaks out behind me, but I ignore it. Where is he?

Toward the left-hand wall of the club is a pair of men who could be the friends I saw him with at the station. I widen my search to take in the people around them but don’t see him anywhere.

And then I do.

He’s at the edge of the dance floor, still wearing his knit hat, drinking from a water bottle, laughing with another man. A laser dips over and behind him, throwing him into silhouette, until he is only a green outline, a ghostly aura.

The laser shuts off. The room goes completely dark. There’s a split second of silence. Then the beat drops, and everything is bleached with light, and in that moment he looks over at the stage, catches my eye, and stills. The strobe fires and there’s that freeze-frame effect again, and with every flash he’s Scott looking at me, as he did in the mirror. Scott looking at me, Scott looking at me. Scott looking at me.

Back from the dead.

BEFORE

2

VIBRATIONS FROM THE HELICOPTER FILL my entire body, making me aware of the skeleton inside me. Everything thrums: heels and toes against insoles, elbows against armrests, lower teeth against upper, even my brain against the inside of my skull. Above, the rotor blades tchk-tchk-tchk and turbulent wind shudders the fuselage. The bitter scent of aviation fuel sits on the back of my tongue, so dense I can taste it. Although my seat is soft and plush, I shift, restless.

Next to me, the pilot consults a complicated bank of winking instruments. You doing okay?

I’m wearing a heavy headset that is too big and keeps sliding down my ears, and his voice comes through small, making him sound much farther away, as if he’s speaking down a tunnel. I wipe my clammy palms on my jeans and nod. He turns to me. First time?

The foam-covered mouthpiece on the headset has sagged. I pinch it closer to my mouth. It smells sickly sweet—traces of previous passengers—and makes me feel slightly nauseous. Yes.

The static coming through my earphones dims, indicating he’s about to speak again. Not quite what you were expecting, huh?

For all my faked nonchalance when I boarded, he’s seen right through me. I don’t move in these kinds of circles, there’s no place for me in a Venn diagram of wealth and power and influence, not with my little flat, the scrabbling around for work, and the fairly small, tame life I lead. Before this, the last time I flew was two years ago—no, make that three—on a budget airline city break to Amsterdam, that fateful last trip with my ex. It was great—bikes, beers, museums. Normal stuff, in my normal life—nothing wrong with that. Perhaps not exactly what I envisioned for myself when I was younger, but, well, things happen. They get real. No, if life were such a Venn diagram, I wouldn’t be anywhere near the center; I’d be in the corner of the page, on the outside of the rings of power, looking in, observing, recording. And it’s not such a bad place to be.

Because while the idea of a helicopter was exciting—is exciting—there’s an edge to it; the reality feels raw, risky in a way a plane never did. Although the cabin’s movement is smooth and the interior luxurious, I’m acutely conscious of how much lower we are flying, of the rotor blades above us cutting the air, the slicing motion carrying us forward, and of how fragile the fuselage feels.

Do you get travel sick? the pilot asks.

No.

Great. His eyes scan the empty sky, taking in everything and nothing at once. What are you going up there for? Holiday?

I lift the droopy mic again. Work. And a kind of favor for a friend. I’m a writer and my friend knows someone who needs help.

We bank, and the earth tilts. After leveling off, he flicks a sideways look at me. Is he trying to work out whether I’m famous? Often people do that when I tell them what my job is. They think all writers are like J. K. Rowling.

What kind of things do you write? he asks. Anything I’ve heard of?

I dread this question. The simple answer is, if you’re into obscure political memoirs you might well have heard of one of my early books. It did quite well, was long-listed for a minor award. But my name isn’t on the cover, and contracts and lawyers and NDAs mean I can’t even mention it. I ghostwrite, mainly.

As in books about poltergeists and haunted houses? I love that spooky stuff.

I smile. That he might believe in ghosts seems so at odds with the formality of his uniform, the conformity of his haircut, the precise science of his job. I’d had him down as ex-military, a pragmatist. No—autobiographies, memoirs. I write other people’s life stories for them.

What kinds of people?

All kinds. Generally successful ones.

He nods, understanding my point, and I think, of course he does. They’re the people he works for, too, although his passengers will be even more successful than my clients—people whose wealth allows them anything they want, even if that’s just the opportunity of getting where they need to go faster.

Another scan of the air. Must be fascinating. Hard, too, I bet.

Says the helicopter pilot.

His lips twist. Touché. But I only take folks places. Usually I’m not delving into their lives, trying to find out all their dirty little secrets.

If only. They tend to keep that stuff to themselves.

I bet they do. He consults an instrument on the panel. Well, we’ve got about ninety minutes until we land. So relax and enjoy the experience. You’ll be fine.

I look out of the side window at the sky, willing my muscles to soften and telling myself the helicopter must be safe—presumably Angela Reynolds does this all the time. Maybe for a doctor of her standing it’s like hopping in an Uber. How much does a short-notice private helicopter flight from London to Scotland cost, anyway? I’d have been happy with the train—less intimidating, for a start—but from the little I’ve seen so far it doesn’t seem that money is an issue for Reynolds RX. And if this job opens as many doors as Sacha promised it will, and the high-end ghosting work comes flooding in, perhaps this’ll become my new normal. No, scratch that. I couldn’t bear the carbon footprint.

After a while, I find the pilot is right and that, even if I’m not entirely relaxed, at least I’ve got used to the constant beat of the blades and can enjoy the scurry of the land below. Ours is such a green country when you see it from the air, once you’re freed from the concrete and tarmac of the roads and cities. Beautiful. It reminds me I ought to get out of London more.

We pass over field after field, all stitched together like a giant emerald-acid-chartreuse quilt tucked tight over the earth, and the farther north we go, over forests and mountains, the bigger the gaps between clusters of roofs grow, until there are hardly any buildings. Imagining living like that, so far from other people, so disconnected, gives me… not the creeps, exactly, but a sense of preemptive loneliness. Fine for a couple of weeks or a holiday, but permanently? I’m happy in my own company, but only a certain kind of person could stick it out here full time, someone tough.

It surprises me that a doctor like Angela would choose a house in such a wild, empty place. Even though we haven’t yet met, given the tone of her email, the Mayfair office address, and the game she’s in—aesthetics so good, apparently, she can charge five figures for injectables and still have a two-year waiting list—I’ve pictured Angela as urbane. Sophisticated. Have I got her wrong? Is she going to be a robust outdoorsy type, all tweed hunting jackets and jolly hockey sticks bonhomie?

We fly over moorland, mile after mile of never-ending bracken. A herd of deer, startled by the helicopter’s approach, take off, cantering so fast I imagine I can hear the flint-cracked thunder of their hooves. They continue running after we’ve overshot them, trying to get away from a danger they don’t understand.

I lift my eyes to the horizon, which is smudged and bent to the curvature of the earth. We skim over a large inland body of water. I steady the headset on my ears. Is that Loch Lomond?

A tinny Yep. The pilot dips his head. And over there, at about ten o’clock, is Varaig.

I crane my neck to try to spot the loch and the house, hoping to gain a few clues into what Angela is like. Sacha told me so little, just assured me the commission was in the bag and said I’d be fine. I trust her, but even so the first-day nerves are jangling. I’m not a huge fan of going into a job blind.

There are three smaller pools in the distance, looking from this height like flat spills of mercury. I presume, comparing what I can see now with yesterday’s recon on Google Maps, that Varaig is the one in the center. It grows as we approach, silver darkening to steel, reflecting the overcast November sky, and at one edge I spy a single white building, a small cottage perhaps, tumbled out alone like a lost die. Angela’s place? But no—we loop back over empty, houseless heath and a few minutes later the pilot is circling over mown grass and then bringing us low. Landing is an impossible rush and upward buck of the ground, wind, vibrations, noise. I can’t help but close my eyes for touchdown.

A woman’s face appears in the helicopter window. The whine of the blades is too loud for speech, so she mouths Hi! through the glass and opens the door. I sense she’s not Angela. More likely the assistant, Raphaela, the one who emailed me the flight details and directions to the heliport in London. She’s a little younger than I am, immaculate in raincoat, silk blouse, and tailored trousers. I lift off my headset and unbuckle my seat belt. She reaches for the handles of my wheelie case and my rucksack.

I can take those, I say, but she shakes her head and points at her ear—she can’t hear me. She flashes a smile and hoicks my luggage onto the turf. After extending a hand to help me out, she puts her palm to the back of her head and mimes ducking.

I copy her beetle-backed posture as we scurry out of the danger zone. The downdraft fills my coat, whipping it around me. No sooner are we clear than the helicopter takes off again, the noise monstrous as it rises. We both stop and watch it grow small against the clouds, lights winking white. Where is the pilot off to next, I wonder. Home to his family? Or elsewhere, to the next job, a new place and another stranger willing to put their life in his hands?

Right, the smart woman says when the thundering has faded. Now that we can hear ourselves think, how about a proper introduction? We shake hands. Raphaela. Her hand is warm, the grip confident.

I guessed so. Maddy.

Welcome to Varaig.

Raphaela has the kind of smile you find in hotel receptionists, or front-of-house staff at good restaurants. I’m suddenly conscious of how the strap of my rucksack must be wrinkling her outfit and of how tatty my case is. I reach for the handle. Here, let me take that.

But she’s already picked it up and is making her way across the grass. Honestly, it’s fine. I’m used to it. And we’re almost there.

At the house? But I didn’t…

She’s crunching onto gravel. A path. You didn’t see it from the air? She smiles over her shoulder, wide-eyed. Angela’s little trick. She leads us on a sharp turn around some trees and suddenly ahead there’s a house; more than a house—a complex. Two large buildings are set perpendicular to each other, the one on the left a traditional stone barn. This must have been a farm once. The barn looks original but carefully restored: the stone has been blasted clean, the rustic wooden doors are freshly painted. But the large building next to it is no working farmhouse. It is a paragon of modern minimalism, brutalist in design: three interlinked concrete blocks fronted with huge walls of glass. From this angle, the glass reflects the clouded sky, shrouding what is inside from view. Yep, money’s definitely not an issue.

I look up. The roofs of the house and barn are carpeted with moss. Raphaela is a fast walker and I have to half trot to keep pace as she reaches the end of the house.

That’s why I couldn’t see it from the air? I ask. The moss? It’s like camouflage.

That was Angela’s idea. Makes it a kind of nice surprise, right? Of course, it helped with the planning permission, too. She skirts the side of the house, where there is a circular gravel driveway, and goes to a door. From this spot I can see that the whole building sits against rock. It’s shady here, and a lot colder. I pull the edges of my coat together. Autumn is far chillier in Scotland than in London.

Right then, one moment. Raphaela leans my case against the wall and rests my rucksack on top of it. She holds her phone to a small unit next to the doorframe. There’s a beep, then the door unlocks. I’ve emailed you the link to download the key app, she says, letting me past.

Stepping inside with a quick thanks, I find myself in a combined mudroom and utility area bigger than my kitchen at home. A fully stocked floor-to-ceiling wine cabinet hums in a corner. Next to the door we came in through, waxed and waterproof jackets hang from pegs; below, walking boots and Wellingtons are ranked on a rack. They are all fastidiously clean. Makes sense for a doctor.

Does Angela live here permanently? I ask.

There’s a clunk as Raphaela swings my luggage onto the rack. She’s not here often. She travels so much. And mainly she stays in London. But she comes here when she can. Calls it her sanctuary. She hangs her raincoat and straightens her blouse. Feel free to look around. You should find everything you need but let me know if there are any amenities or foods you prefer and I’ll get them sent over.

I open a door to a double-height atrium with a corner staircase spiraling up to a mezzanine. The ceiling and floor are honey-toned concrete, the walls white and hung with pictures. Apart from one old-fashioned watercolor landscape in a scalloped gilt frame, the art is contemporary, photos and abstracts, in keeping with the house. Tucked under the stairs, in the center of a Perspex console table, stands a small bronze sculpture, a rough molding of a human form standing supplicant. I step closer. It looks like an artist’s manikin, one of those little wooden puppets with jointed limbs. But it is finished in a way that makes it seem as if its skin has been stripped off, leaving its crude metal muscles exposed. The effect is grotesque.

Impressive, isn’t it? Raphaela is in the atrium behind me. She isn’t talking about the manikin but the room, even the whole house.

I turn my back on the sculpture. For all I know of art, it could be worth millions. She seems quite the collector.

It’s her hobby. She’s tapping at her phone, making a call. Excuse me while I…

Of course.

Your room is upstairs. I can show you in a moment or you can make yourself at home.

I’m more than happy to look around on my own. It means I don’t have to pretend to be cool when truthfully I’m blown away by this place. I tiptoe past her into a kitchen and dining area. Like the atrium, it is large and airy, birch and limestone. Tastefully anonymous. I open a cupboard. I’ve found the fridge. It’s full, packed with fresh fruit and vegetables, meat and fish, high-end ready meals, eggs, cheese. The next cupboard, a pantry, is the same: unopened jams and condiments, two types of peanut butter, Marmite, vinegars, oils. All pristine. No moldy half-used marmalade here.

The end of the house is a living room, although the word room seems inadequate to describe it, suggesting something smaller. All the furniture—sofa, armchairs, inset fireplace, wood store—is minimalist, the colors natural and muted. It’s a blank canvas with nothing to distract the eye, and when I look out I can see why. The view is everywhere, is everything. Lawn and the beginnings of leggy heather in the foreground, a long dip of moorland—maybe the Scots would call it a glen—fading to blurred woolliness in the distance, and then the loch and, beyond, mountains. It’s late afternoon now and sunlight slats the glen, casting long shadows where it snags on gorse bushes, illuminating motes suspended in the air on the other side of the glass and faceting the water beyond like a jewel. So this is how the other half live.

Raphaela is still on her phone as I backtrack into the atrium. There’s another door, which I missed earlier. It opens onto a corridor that runs the length of the back of the house. It’s bunker-like here, being closed off from the view, and almost claustrophobic. Two doors stand ajar—empty bedrooms. A third is closed. As Raphaela said I’ve been put upstairs, I don’t go in.

I can’t help but catch a strand of her conversation as I climb up to the mezzanine: … can’t you keep him a while longer? Please? I have no choice… Off the landing is a bedroom, the bed made up with crisp sheets. A jar of white roses rests on the nightstand. A card reads: Madeleine. I hope you’re comfortable. Call Raphaela if you need anything. Angela. I examine the handwriting, which is looped, generous. Did she write this herself or get her assistant to do it? I wander into the bathroom, which has both a walk-in shower and an egg-shaped tub.

Beyond the en suite is an office, a glass desk dead center. It’s like being in a spread from an architectural magazine, far more impressive than the cozy living rooms or golf clubhouses where I usually meet my clients. I sit in the chair and picture writing here. My pulse quickens. I could definitely get used to this. When you work for yourself there’s no such thing as a promotion, but this feels like a step up. Maybe my words will come out as clean and perfect as the house.

A noise breaks the peace. It settles into the distinguishable chudder of a helicopter, getting louder every second. I cross to the window. Yes, there it is, hovering above the place it dropped me, already tilting its rails toward the ground like a giant black bird angling on its prey.

I clatter down the stairs. Raphaela looks up, her face the mask of a consummate professional.

Angela’s here.

3

ANGELA, WHEN SHE ENTERS THE house, has two tiny, cute dogs trailing her. She comes straight up to me, her heels and their claws clicking on the polished floor, and squeezes my hand.

Madeleine. I’m so pleased to finally meet you.

Angela is what my mum would have called well put together. Exceedingly so. She’s classic-looking: slim but not bony-thin, average height like me, but with far more poise. Her eyes are pale, cool, assessing; her hair, that fashionable shade of West London blond, is held in a neat chignon. Her dress is the chicest I’ve ever seen. Seamless and hemless, it floats around her like a white cocoon. Just from looking at her, I know she is excellent at what she does.

And you, I say. Thanks again for the commission.

My pleasure. Shall we? She has a curious accent, transatlantic. It reminds me of the way Hollywood stars of the 1950s used to speak. Slow, considered, held in.

She indicates with her head that I’m to follow her through to the living room. The dogs come with us. They are spaniels, small as toys, one black and white with tan eyebrows, the other pure tan. Show dogs by the look of it. As we go, I retuck my shirt and unroll the sleeves. I’m wearing what I always wear when meeting clients—shirt, black skinnies. What I always wear full stop. But now I feel like I should have put on something smarter, a blazer maybe. At least these are my newest jeans.

In the living room I sit where directed on the sofa, and Angela takes an armchair. The dogs make to jump onto the chair, too, but Angela warns, Rudy, Massimo, and they settle by her feet. To me she says, Before we get into it, would you like something to drink? Coffee?

That’d be great, thanks.

Of course. Raphaela? As she speaks to her assistant, I scan Angela’s face. Her skin looks so good that she must have had work done herself. Yet there’s no telltale shiny tightness, no immobilized features: her eyebrows lift as she talks; her forehead puckers.

Raphaela bows out of the room. Sounds of a machine warming up come through from the kitchen.

Angela smooths the silk of her dress over her knees. So you know Sacha from university?

How much has Sacha told Angela about me? Will she have explained how she basically became my big sister after Mum died, how I completely fell apart? Man, I hope she kept it strictly professional. Yes, she must have done, or I wouldn’t be here. That’s right, from day one, I say. We had neighboring rooms in halls. So long ago. To think of us then is to think of two other people—barely more than kids but believing we were adults, blissfully clueless about what life would soon chuck at us. She’s a fantastic lawyer.

Angela raises her eyebrows and smiles tightly. Of course she already knows this. Embarrassment tingles my cheeks. I’m not normally anxious when I meet new clients or start a project. But the stakes feel higher than usual: we had no preliminary meeting to see whether we’d be a good fit; time is tighter, the money greater. Have you been looking for a ghostwriter for a while? I add.

She leans down to stroke the ears of the tan-colored dog. I know Lord Malouf.

Malouf was my client who was offered a peerage. He has never publicly acknowledged me as his ghostwriter. Crap. If Malouf thinks I’ve blabbed about being his ghost, broken the terms of the NDA, I could be in big trouble.

She sees my panic. Don’t worry. Abdul knows you didn’t tell. He’s very proud of the book, you know. He has a copy of the cover, blown up and framed, in his cloakroom.

Raphaela comes back through with a coffee for me, water for both of us. If Angela has been in Malouf’s downstairs bathroom, she must know him well. He never invited me into his home when we worked together. Are they friends? I can’t imagine how their paths would cross. Unless he’s a client of hers? I try not to laugh. Imagine!

He was a pleasure to work with, I say neutrally, copying the word she used earlier.

Abdul says the same. You come highly recommended.

I try to hide the warmth growing in my face—a happy glow, this time—by sipping some coffee. I need to play it cool. This woman seems all business and pretty shrewd.

I was also impressed with how discreet you were about your previous clients when Sacha put us in touch, she says. It’s what piqued my interest. We’re the same here. We’re all about discretion.

We?

Myself and my business partner, Scott De Luca.

Discretion. That’s exactly the right word for Angela. In her composed manner and understated style, both in her dress and her house.

And in answer to your question, Angela continues, yes, I have been looking for a ghostwriter for my memoir for a while. I had one. He started, but sadly there were personal issues at his end. I don’t like to go into detail—her diction is studied, formal, like her unusual accent—but there were difficulties with his family, an emergency, and he wasn’t able to produce on time. My needs are precise, Madeleine, and I need someone who is a good fit. A safe pair of hands and a good pair of eyes. Someone who won’t get distracted. I can’t afford to get it wrong again.

Well, I like to think I’m both reliable and perceptive. And she certainly doesn’t have to worry about family emergencies with me.

Perfect. She stands. The tan dog is immediately on his feet. The black-and-white one, Rudy, takes a couple of attempts to get up, staggering a little as he does so, as if caught unawares. I’ll show you the clinic so you can begin to get a feel for what we do.

I’d like that. Sacha told me there was a clinic on site, for convenience for certain clients. It puzzled