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‘Hi, Mr. Flynn. I tried calling. I looked you up in the phonebook and this is your only listed address. I didn’t know it was your office. I thought it was your house. I was just sitting here trying to figure out how to reach you as I couldn’t wait ’til tomorrow to speak to you.’

‘What’s wrong, did something happen?’

‘It’s just all getting too much for me,’ she said, and pulled up the sleeve of her top. Below it I saw a dark slash on her forearm – she’d cut herself.

‘Let’s get you inside.’

We went up to my office, and I showed Sofia into the bathroom in the back.

She took off her hoodie, and I saw her bare arms again, but this time her lip trembled, and she hung her head. She was embarrassed. The first time she’d shown me her arms was for a reason – to prove that she wasn’t suicidal. Now I

was looking at her arms because her compulsion had gotten out of control – and

that was where the shame lay.

‘It’s okay, Sofia,’ I said.

There was a new cut on her arm, laced over the multiple white and pink scars, which was still bleeding. It wasn’t anything serious – she hadn’t nicked an artery – but it looked deeper than most of the others.

I got some gauze and Band-Aids from the bathroom cupboard and cleaned and patched the cut. It bled through the Band-Aid. Her other wrist was still bandaged from the bite she’d taken out of it in the precinct. At that moment, I didn’t really know what I should say. I decided she didn’t need a lecture.

‘Here’s a towel. Keep pressure on it,’ I said, ripping off the Band-Aid – it was too soon to apply one.

She thanked me and we moved back into my office. She took a seat on the couch and I fixed her a glass of bourbon.

‘I don’t have coffee. Ran out today. Just sip this, and when you’re ready we can talk.’

She nodded and took off her ballcap, letting her dark hair loose. She took half the glass in one mouthful, and I refilled it.

‘Take it slower. Just sips,’ I said, pouring myself one.

I sat in my client chair, swiveled it around so I was facing her. We sat together, sipping our bourbon in silence.

‘So do you live around here?’ she said.

‘I live here. There’s a cot in the back, some books. A bathroom. That’s all I need. But I need to get a proper place so my daughter can come and stay weekends.’

‘Do you see much of your daughter?’ she asked, and as she spoke her eyes took on a faraway glint. It was as if the question wasn’t really about me at all.

‘We spend time together every weekend. Saturdays in the mall, or Sundays in the park. She’s fourteen now. She likes the mall more than the park now, I’m noticing.’

‘You buy her things?’ she asked, again with a thousand-mile stare.

‘I do. Well, I give her an allowance and she spends it. I wouldn’t know about make-up, or what magazines she’s into these days. I do give her books though.

She’s a reader. Right now she’s working her way through Ross MacDonald and Patricia Highsmith.’

‘Smart kid. I couldn’t concentrate on books. Being still, quiet … I could just never quite manage it. I was always bouncing off the goddamn walls, you know?’

I nodded.

‘My dad put money in an account for me when I was that age. After Mom died I was sent to boarding school. He couldn’t get the time to visit. Birthdays, holidays, he sent me money. There was a period when I was growing up when I

saw him maybe two or three times a year at most.’

‘What about your sister? Did you see her more often?’

‘Less. That suited me just fine.’