I put down the tray and crept down the hallway, past Patrick’s boxes piled up all higgledy-piggledy. Poor Ellen; her house doesn’t have quite the same spiritual feel to it now, with all these dusty boxes. I wonder if she hates it, or if she is above such earthly matters. If I know Patrick, they’ll be sitting there for a long time.

I looked out the side window near Ellen’s front door and I could see a man. He’d shoved his hands in his pockets and stuck his jaw out, like he was preparing for a confrontation. He was in his forties. There was something premium-looking about him, something that said money: Maybe it was the suit, or the longish, carefully tousled haircut, or just the way he was standing with his feet firmly planted, the stance of a man who was used to being in charge.

I was intrigued.

A customer in need of a hypnotic fix?

An ex-boyfriend of Ellen’s? He didn’t seem her type. I’m sure Patrick isn’t her type either—he’s too ordinary and blokey. She should be with a pale and interesting poet, and give me back my hale and hearty surveyor.

A lover? Perhaps Patrick wasn’t the baby’s father. That would be perfect. Could this visitor, this really quite angry-looking man, be a spanner in their works?

I opened the door.

Chapter 18

It’s funny that people call hypnotherapy “new age.” Hieroglyphics found on tombs indicate that the Egyptians were using hypnosis as early as 3000 BC.

—Excerpt from www.­EllenOFarrellHypnotherapy.­com

Listen to this, Madeline.”

Julia put her hand on Madeline’s arm and Ellen watched Madeline flinch slightly. It was Wednesday night and the three of them were out having dinner at a crowded Thai restaurant before they saw a movie. They were squashed together in a booth. The movie started at nine p.m. and it was seven-thirty now, and they’d only just managed to get their menus delivered. They were going to be late for the movie, which would irritate Madeline, while Julia would make a show of not letting it worry her, being the free and easy type that she wasn’t.

Julia and Madeline didn’t get on, and they only pretended to like each other for Ellen’s sake. As the “mutual friend,” Ellen normally made a point of seeing them separately, but she’d known that they both had wanted to see the new George Clooney movie, so it seemed silly not to ask the two of them.

Now she reminded herself not to do it again. Julia always seemed to want to make it clear to Madeline that she was the longer-standing friend, bringing up stories from their school days, mentioning old friends and behaving in a slightly adolescent fashion. Madeline refused to take part in the I’m-the-better-friend-of-Ellen competition and instead took refuge in her role as the only mother among the three of them. She maintained a permanent distracted, harried expression, as if she was listening out for a child’s cry. At the moment she was eight months pregnant, so she was even worse than usual, with one hand permanently pressed to her belly. Now that Ellen was pregnant too, Madeline had the edge over Julia and she was using it to full advantage, constantly steering the conversation back to babies. As the only one drinking, Julia was working her way through a bottle of wine and fighting back by using every opportunity to imply that she adored her childfree existence and high-flying career.

Ellen wanted to grab both their hands and say, Relax!

“What?” said Madeline. She moved her hand slightly away from Julia’s. She wasn’t a touchy-feely sort of person. Julia, picking up on this, was always touching Madeline’s arm, and kissed her ostentatiously whenever they all met.

“Her stalker leaves her freshly baked biscuits at her front door—and does she toss them straight in the trash and call the police, like any normal, sane person would do?” said Julia. “No, she makes herself a cup of tea and she eats them!”

“I hope they didn’t have nuts in them,” said Madeline. “You should be avoiding peanuts when you’re pregnant, did you know that?”

“Nuts are the very least of her worries!” cried Julia. “The stalker would have spat in them for sure. Or worse. Oh, God, I’m gagging at the thought of what she could have done, Ellen, of what she probably did do. Seriously.”

“Well, what sort of biscuits were they?” asked Madeline.

“Shit-flavored,” said Julia. She giggled so hard she keeled over sideways.

Madeline shifted herself away from Julia and smiled stiffly. “How did you know they were from her?” she asked Ellen.

From her prone position Julia said, “Were they chocolate chip?”

“They were Anzac biscuits, and I know they were from her because there was a note,” said Ellen. “It said: I made these today and I thought you might like some. Love, Saskia.”

“Oh, that’s so creepy.” Madeline shuddered with distaste to show that this sort of thing wouldn’t be allowed to happen in her own orderly life.

“It gets worse,” said Ellen.

“It does?” Julia sat up again. Ellen had only given her half the story before Madeline arrived.

“I think she cooked them in my house,” said Ellen.

“Oh. My. God,” said Julia.

“What made you think that?” asked Madeline, calmly, because Julia had taken on the dramatic role.

“There was a smell of cooking in my kitchen,” said Ellen.

She remembered standing in the kitchen, after that strange awful day in the mountains, breathing in the distinctive fragrances of golden syrup and brown sugar, her heart hammering, reminded so strongly of visits when her grandmother was alive. Her grandmother used to make Anzac biscuits all the time. Saskia’s had been nearly as good as hers, maybe better. Crunchier.