But as I reach my front door, the atmosphere changes. The prospect of a night alone is suddenly terrifying and for a moment I wish I’d let Si come back after all. Then again, I know that I need to be alone, and besides, I can’t afford to give him the wrong idea, for him to think that a night out will automatically end up back at mine.

The broken pane in the front door has been sealed with a piece of cardboard and gaffer tape. I stumble upstairs to the flat, the steps creaking beneath my feet, my heartbeat racing as I fumble with my bag. The windowless hallway is in darkness and I bash my key unsuccessfully against the lock, patting my fingers along the wall for a light switch. As they find it, the sharpness of its features is a relief, but when I flick the button, nothing happens.

‘Shit,’ I mutter under my breath, making a mental note to remind the landlord to sort out the light in the hall.

It is the same feeling I used to get as a child when I got up in the night needing the toilet; that dread at having to wander through the house alone in pitch-black, imagining something I couldn’t see moving closer and closer. The same rising terror circles me now as it had running back towards my childhood bed at full speed and jumping the final distance, convinced someone would reach out from under the bed and drag me down by the ankles. Except this time, as I lift my key, I remember that the bogeyman is real.

When the lock finally gives way with a crack, I fall into the room, slamming my hand against the wall, feeling for the switch and flicking it on so that the room suddenly fills with light.

It is exactly as I left it, the same cups discarded by the sink.

The previous owner of this flat, which I have rented for the past year, since everything happened, had divided it in two with a cheap stud wall, to transform it from a studio into a one-bed. Checking behind the internal door to my bedroom to confirm that I am alone, I go to the bathroom, turning on the bath taps before moving into the kitchen, popping out a Xanax, splitting it in half and pouring myself a small glass of whisky.

As I lower myself into the bath a few minutes later, at last I allow my mind to grapple with what I’ve been keeping at bay all day, the memory I had begun to believe I might have distorted. This time, when the picture starts to blur and contort, the discomfort lodging itself in my chest, I push through so that certain pieces of the puzzle flash into focus: the depth of the man’s voice; the name: Eva.