It was a very strange state to be in: physically in good shape for her age, mentally still very focused on her business, beautifully turned out as always, but…how to put this? She had no words for what was happening inside her. All she had to describe it was an image from a TV documentary on global warming: vital elements of an ancient glacier's primitive structure had melted in some unusually fierce summer heat and, without warning, a vast tonnage of ice had collapsed in a protracted roar into a lake below. She knew, from the ghastly plummet in her own organs, that she was watching a pre-figurement of what might happen to her unless she did something fast.

The whisky glass travelled to her mouth and back to the desk, transported by a hand that she did not feel belonged to her. She was grateful for the ethereal sting of the alcohol because it reminded her that she was still sentient. She was playing with a business card, turning it over and over, rubbing the embossed name and profession with her thumb. Her manager knocked and came in.

'We're finished now,' he said. 'We'll be locking up in five minutes. There's nothing left to do here…you should go home.'

'That man who was here earlier, one of the waiters said he was outside. Are you sure he's gone?'

'I'm sure,' said the manager.

'I'll let myself out of the side door,' she said, giving him one of her hard, professional looks.

He backed off. Consuelo was sorry. He was a good man, who knew when a person needed help and also when that help was unacceptable. What was going on inside Consuelo was too personal to be sorted out in an after-hours chat between proprietor and manager. This wasn't about unpaid bills or difficult clients. This was about…everything.

She went back to the card. It belonged to a clinical psychologist called Alicia Aguado. Over the last eighteen months Consuelo had made six appointments with this woman and failed to turn up for any of them.