‘The ex?’ Murdo exclaimed.
‘You sure this is a good idea?’ Ted said. ‘Will the ex be there?’
I almost laughed. ‘Ted. It’s his mother. Anyway, I’ll be back in time for afternoon group.’
‘Grand. And your new client arrives tomorrow morning,’ he said. ‘Priya will email the file.’
I went to find Giles and, in the corridor, passed Dennis who was huddled with Roxy, deep in chat. God only knew what Dennis wanted with her, but certainly not advice on recovery, from the wheeler-dealery energy he was giving off. More like he was trying to sell her a septic tank （‘one careful owner’） or doing his best to buy a roller disco at a knockdown price …
He spotted me and an expression of theatrical fear crossed his face. ‘Jez, there’s Rachel,’ he declared. ‘I’m quaking in me boots!’
（Said boots were cut-off wellingtons, which the bottoms of his exhausted trousers were tucked into. Dennis, though a townie, was the kind of can-do operator who’d happily jump in to help with some emergency lambing, if he thought it would drum up a couple of votes in the local elections.）
‘Morning, Dennis, Roxy.’ I tried to sound lofty.
Being mean didn’t come naturally, but it was important that they were terrified of me.
‘Quaking,’ Dennis repeated, in a fake undertone.
You should be, I thought, almost sadly. I’m accumulating so much information on you and your shenanigans and soon I’m going to rain terror down on your head.
In the dining room Giles, flanked by Chalkie, was buttering toast and crying.
‘Wudja stop, ya big thick,’ Chalkie was saying, not unkindly. ‘Making a show of yourself.’
‘Let him cry.’ Trassa was all sympathy. ‘After the terrible, terrible things he’s done, the lives he’s ruined, who wouldn’t cry?’ As Giles scanned the length of the table, she asked, ‘What are you looking for, pet?’
‘Marmalade,’ Giles squeaked.
‘Harlie!’ Trassa yelled. ‘Pass the marmalade along to poor Giles.’
‘Giles,’ I said. He looked up, his face drenched. ‘I’ll see you in Consulting Room Three at ten o’clock.’
Mutely, he nodded.
‘You not doing group this morning?’ Chalkie was aggrieved. ‘Who’s covering?’
‘Murdo.’
‘Okay.’ Several expressions moved across his face, eventually landing on disappointment. Murdo, my heavily inked, much-pierced young deputy, was tough and that didn’t suit Chalkie because he was still trying to avoid who he really was.
Six minutes later, Giles, leaking tears, slid into the armchair opposite me. （The seats were much more comfortable in these small one-to-one rooms.）
A successful, entitled man, he’d spent his life accumulating and discarding wives and children. Everything had come easy to him. In recent years, though, his rarefied life of tennis and sailing had slid off the rails as his fondness for good times crossed the line into raging addiction.
But his second and third wives had been in competition to enable him for as long as possible. As soon as one tentatively voiced the opinion that starting each day with four lines of coke wasn’t perhaps ideal, he’d upped and left for the other. This ex-wife ping-pong had carried on for over a year, Giles bouncing back and forth.
His colleagues also protected him because he was ‘high functioning’ – which translates as ‘still able to charm potential clients’。 （For as long as anyone keeps making money, everyone seems happy to pretend they’re fine.）
Only after having a paranoia attack on a press trip was he finally cut loose by his board – which was the catalyst that propelled him in here. I’d never yet seen an addict seek help if they weren’t in danger of losing – or had already lost – someone or something important to them.
Over the past four weeks, I’d unleashed a bombardment of truth on Giles. His friends, wives, ex-wives and adult children had all showed up to reveal the truth about him.
It had broken him wide open and now he sat weeping, a box of tissues on his lap.
‘Why are you crying?’ I asked softly.
‘All of it,’ he said thickly. ‘Leaving Danielle.’ His first wife. ‘She was devastated … and I didn’t care, because I thought I loved Ingrid.’ His third wife. （Yes, he’d somehow managed to slot in an extra wife between his first wife and the woman he’d left her for. Giles was full of plot twists.） ‘And my children. They were just babies and I neglected them …’