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got married yet?’ I prodded, to change the subject.
    ‘Yes. Big wedding last weekend. He’s all settled with his perfect blonde princess and Mercedes and new partnership at his law firm now.’
    The bitter tone and twisted expression told me more than the words did how competitive the sibling rivalry was. ‘Ok–ay.’ Clearing my throat, I turned a printed spreadsheet over. ‘Shall we look at this one now then?’
    ‘Yes,’ he agreed, yanking it towards him.
    I remember thinking:
He’ll get over whatever he thought might be happening between us. He’s got other things going on.
    Then odd things started happening.
    Staff meetings mysteriously moved so I’d miss them, appointments were changed in the shared diary so I didn’t know when corporate clients would be arriving, making me look and feel hopelessly inept. Deadlines were altered, making me prioritise work in the wrong order and have to ask for extensions or face the embarrassment of sending it in late. I started keeping a paper diary so I could track deadlines accurately, make sure I wasn’t going mad. If I was out of the office, Tony would get everyone looking for me as if I’d gone AWOL, and would apologise quietly after the fact, saying he hadn’t seen the external appointments in my diary. When I asked what was going on he’d express innocence, saying he’d been confused.
    I was so frustrated. His behaviour was unreasonable, but I wasn’t sure what to do. It all seemed so intangible and I wasn’t sure I could prove the ‘confusion’ was anything other than genuine human error. So I looked at our policies and procedures, researched sexual harassment online, went onto forums for research. It didn’t feel like he was bullying me as such and he was the junior employee. When I read all the horrifying true stories on the message boards and chat rooms of how people had ended up going off sick with work-related stress and falling into depression, even losing their jobs, houses and marriages, it made my own fears seem silly.
    I settled for making notes of the date, time, location and content of any worrying conversations or events in my moleskin notebook, and called Human Resources. I didn’t name myself or Tony, wanting to guard my privacy and in hindsight, my pride. The HR Manager advised me to try and resolve the issues with my staff member informally and if it didn’t work to raise a formal complaint under the grievance procedure or take him through a disciplinary process, which would be taken seriously by the company. She took pains to ask if I felt physically threatened in any way but I couldn’t honestly say yes at that point.
    Coming off the phone feeling better, I was determined to have a clear, minuted conversation with Tony, where I’d tell him I knew he was trying to undermine me and wouldn’t stand for it. That it’d be regarded as insubordination and a potential conduct issue. But before I had a chance, one awful evening cut my time at the casino short.
    I never saw it coming, not what happened. Despite the storm warnings on the horizon I should have noticed.

Chapter Five
    Now
    ‘Miss?’ The air hostess pops up next to me.
    ‘Argh!’ I jump, wrenched from the past, hand jerking around the glass on the tray. A wave of cold water sloshes over the rim into my lap. Yelping, I make an ‘ah–ah–ah’ sound as the icy liquid soaks through my trousers. It can only be this freezing because all the ice has melted. How long was I brooding for?
    Alex frowns at me and I fall silent with a self-conscious grimace, standing to mop up the mess.
    The stewardess shakes her head, pointing out the window. ‘Sorry, you’ll have to wait until we’ve landed. I’ll bring you a towel to sit on. Can you fasten your seatbelt please?’
    ‘Huh?’ I glance out the narrow cabin window, gobsmacked to see it’s night time, thousands of twinkling lights appearing as the plane banks to the right.
    She brings me a thick navy towel. ‘Thanks,’ I