I had prepared six sentences. I said one and a half of them.
I'd written them on the Sunday evening in my phone's notes, between two emails, with the same app I use for a board meeting, because I don't know any other way of doing things. The first: hello, my name is Claire, I mean you no harm. The second: he isn't coming back, that isn't a threat, it's information. The third: the apartment is yours, nobody is taking it from you, you can stop. The fourth said that there are lawyers in Shanghai and that I know two of them. The fifth I won't repeat here. The sixth was: I'm hanging up now.
She picked up on the second ring. A young voice, composed, clean English, effortless, the kind you don't learn at a training centre in Jing'an. I said: "Nina? Am I speaking to Nina?" She said yes. And then, in a silence I took at first for fear, I heard a keyboard.