She nearly said it out loud, to test the possibility. “Huh! That’s funny, I have a client who has exactly the same problem.” Except she knew it wasn’t a coincidence, and she knew he would know it wasn’t.

Deborah.

What was her last name?

Deborah Vandenberg.

She could see Deborah Vandenberg’s face so clearly. She ran late for her very first appointment. She had seemed a little odd, a little shifty-looking, but then, many of her clients seemed odd and shifty at their first appointments. It was because they had never seen a hypnotherapist before and didn’t know what to expect. They kept looking about warily, as though they suspected someone was about to play a practical joke on them.

“I’ve had this pain in my leg,” she’d told Ellen, and ran her palm down the length of a long, slender blue-jeaned thigh.

She told Ellen that sometimes she had to sit down to cook dinner. She told her about a “smarmy doctor” who asked if she’d been experiencing any “stress” lately, and she’d been so furious at the implication that she could be imagining the pain that she’d walked out without saying another word.

Deborah was Saskia.

Saskia was Deborah.

All this time obsessing over Saskia and she’d already met her, she’d talked to her, she’d been in her house. She was tall and striking. Interesting-colored eyes. Hazel. Almost gold. Like a tiger’s eyes. (Ellen noticed eyes. It was because she’d been brought up in the shadow of her mother’s violet eyes.) Well dressed. Articulate. She would never, ever have picked her as a stalker. She had not had a definite picture in her head of Saskia, but she’d been imagining her as small, with squinty eyes, a scurrying insane little mouse of a person. (Why did she think tall people couldn’t be crazy? Because they looked like they ruled the world? Because she admired them and coveted their legs?)

She felt Patrick’s hand on her arm. “Ellen? Did you want a drink?”

The interesting thing was that she quite liked her. Deborah—Saskia. She’d enjoyed their sessions. Their chats. She’d admired her boots once, and Deborah—Saskia—had told her about how they were actually comfortable as well as beautiful, and Ellen had gone out and bought exactly the same pair, spending more money than she’d ever spent on shoes.

She was wearing those boots right now.

“No, I’m fine,” she said to Patrick, tucking her boots under her seat.

So did Saskia really need help with her leg? Or was that just an excuse? And what exactly was her objective? Did she just want to observe Ellen? (In the same way that Ellen would have quite liked to have secretly observed Jon’s new wife-to-be, the dental hygienist, except that she would never actually make an appointment, because she wasn’t that interested, and, more to the point, how embarrassing if someone found out.)

Patrick sighed and stretched out his legs.

“The best part of leaving Sydney is knowing that I don’t need to worry about Saskia suddenly turning up anywhere. I didn’t even bring my mobile phone. I gave Mum and Jack the number at the hotel and your mobile number. I hope that’s OK, I meant to ask you.”

“Of course it’s OK.” Oh, no, no, no.

“So that’s the last thing I’m going to say about that woman for the rest of the weekend. I’m not going to talk about her, I’m not going to think about her, I’m not going to see her. We are now entering a Saskia-free zone.”

Oh, God. Ellen tapped two fingers rhythmically against her forehead. If it wasn’t so awful it could nearly be funny. Or at least slightly amusing.

“What’s the matter?”

“I just remembered something. Something I meant to do before I left.”

She had told Deborah, or Saskia, exactly where they were going this weekend. She had even told her where they were staying.

She’d called her the other day on her mobile phone to ask if they could reschedule their Monday appointment. “I’m unexpectedly going away,” she’d told her. “For a long weekend to Noosa.”

“I’m envious,” Saskia had said, in her cool Deborah voice. “I love Noosa. Where are you staying?”

“I think my partner has got us booked at the Sheraton,” Ellen had answered. Partner! She’d called Patrick her partner! Why had she done that? She didn’t even like the word. It was because Deborah seemed like the sort of woman who would find “boyfriend” too juvenile a term. But why had she even needed to mention Patrick at all? For some reason she had wanted Deborah to know that she was in a relationship. Because Deborah had seemed like an attractive professional fortyish woman who would be in one of those elegant relationships involving vineyards and boating and really high-quality sex, with no accidental pregnancies. She had wanted Deborah to think that she was in one of those relationships too.

So because of her foolish, unprofessional desire to impress a client (whom she should not have wanted to impress in the first place), she had helpfully let Saskia know that they were going away for a romantic weekend to the same place where she and Patrick had met.

She glanced at Patrick. He had leaned his head back against the seat and let his face relax.

“I don’t even realize how tense she makes me until I get away,” he said without opening his eyes.

Ellen dropped her head and hit the heel of her hand against her forehead in silent anguish. Instead of making life easier for Patrick, she’d actually aided and abetted his stalker. Her mouth went dry and she lifted her chin. Saskia wouldn’t follow them all the way to Noosa, would she? She couldn’t, for example, have booked tickets on this very flight?