“Speaking of the police—”

“Yes, I know.” Patrick’s jaw shifted convulsively. “I just—I don’t know. I’m just not sure if that’s the way to go.”

He obviously didn’t want to go back to the police again, but she couldn’t quite pinpoint his reasons. Was it just his fear that Saskia would do what she’d threatened and make accusations against him? Or something more than that?

“Think about it,” she said.

“I will.” But she could tell that he wouldn’t.

She yawned, suddenly and hugely. “I can’t believe how tired I feel.”

“I’m going to be awake for hours,” said Patrick. “With my thoughts going around and around like a merry-go-round. Could you just hypnotize me to sleep?”

“Ha,” said Ellen.

“Seriously. Can you do that?”

“Hypnotizing your partners isn’t considered such a good idea, you know, ethically,” she said, feeling prudish. It had come up before, in previous relationships, but mostly the requests had been flippant and she’d been able to brush them off.

“I won’t report you,” said Patrick. “I just want to switch off all these thoughts in my head.”

Her heart went out to him. She wavered. “I thought you didn’t really like the idea of hypnotism. You said you hated the idea of losing control.”

“That was before I met you. I understand more about it now. And I trust you.”

Ellen thought of her mentor, Flynn, an old-school hypnotherapist in his sixties who hated stage hypnotists with a passion, and believed that the only way to protect his professional integrity was to never, ever practice his craft outside the therapist’s office. She thought of the cool young guy she was mentoring, Danny, who proudly told Ellen that he used the hypnotic handshake to help pick up women in bars (with huge success, apparently, so Ellen knew that it didn’t matter how strenuously she disapproved). If she ever told Flynn about what she let Danny get away with, he’d be horrified, like a grandparent who thought she was spoiling her child. She guessed that on the ethical spectrum she was somewhere in the middle of Flynn and Danny.

“I suppose there wouldn’t be any harm in just doing a relaxation exercise,” she said.

Chapter 8

By the way, I’m not “stalking” you. Please stop using that word, you know it’s ridiculous. I just want to TALK to you, that’s all.

—From an unopened e-mail to Patrick Scott

So this guy in the U.S. goes to court because he is being stalked by his ex-girlfriend,” said Patrick. “And the judge says, ‘You should be flattered by the attention,’ and a few days later he ends up dead. His stalker shot him or stabbed him or something. True story.”

It was Sunday afternoon and Ellen, Patrick, Julia and Patrick’s friend Stinky (his real name still hadn’t been confirmed, and both Ellen and Julia were too much their North Shore mothers’ daughters to bring themselves to call him “Stinky”) were eating fish and chips on a picnic rug at Watsons Bay.

It was Julia who had brought up the stalking issue. “So I hear you have a stalker, Patrick,” she’d said within minutes of them all sitting down, in the same sociable tone she’d use to say, “So I hear you’re a surveyor, Patrick.” Ellen had been surprised that Patrick hadn’t tried to change the subject, especially after the previous night with his family. In fact, he responded almost enthusiastically. It was interesting seeing the slight variations in his personality when he was around different people. With his family he was chattier, softer, boyish. With Stinky and Julia he was a laid-back, nothing-worries-me Aussie bloke.

“But you’re not in fear of your life, are you, Scottie?” asked Stinky.

Stinky was chunky and balding, with two giant dimples creasing his cheeks, so he looked like a giant baby with gray stubble and a deep voice. He was also quite short for a man, something Patrick had neglected to mention, and Ellen had neglected to mention that Julia was quite tall for a woman. When Julia, who was looking especially cosmopolitan, with a fitted jacket and scarf and spike-heeled leather boots that made her look supermodel tall, had shaken hands with Stinky, who was wearing a rumpled country shirt and faded jeans, with scuffed workman’s boots, she had raised one eyebrow over the top of his head at Ellen, who had shrugged back. This would become a story Julia would exaggerate for years to come: The time you tried to set me up with a bald midget called “Stinky.”

But in a way it was better that Julia had obviously written off Stinky, because she was completely relaxed, eating the hot chips like a machine and even flirting a bit with Stinky. If she’d actually seen him as a prospect she would have been avoiding eye contact and acting aggressively noninterested and she would have lost her appetite completely.

“I’m not in fear of my life,” said Patrick. “Just my sanity at times. My point was that people don’t take male stalking victims seriously.”

“Did you ever meet this girl, ah, you over there?” said Julia to Stinky. “Look, can I get your real name, please? I just can’t call you ‘Stinky,’ and you seem to smell perfectly acceptable.”

“It’s Bruce.”

“It’s not.”

“What’s wrong with Bruce? I’m offended.”

“OK, Bruce, did you ever meet her?” said Julia. “Patrick’s stalker?”