‘Don’t be. Your mum’s right, you’ve been really brave.’

‘Not as brave as the lady who saved me. You will find her, won’t you?’ Amelia said, fresh tears threatening. ‘I have to say thank you to her.’

‘I’ll do my best.’

‘Do you want to go outside and play for a bit, get some fresh air?’ Kathryn suggested. ‘I’ll watch from the window and I won’t take my eyes off you. I promise.’

Amelia gave her mum a stern look that Kathryn felt compelled to explain after her daughter had set off for the swings. ‘She hasn’t forgiven me for leaving her,’ she said. ‘And I can’t say I blame her.’

‘This wasn’t a tragedy you could have foreseen. You are not responsible,’ Leanne said, as the familiar taste of bile rose in her throat. ‘It was the job of the people who renovated the theatre to make sure it was safe. Unfortunately, they spent too much time choosing the right shade of velvet for the curtains to worry about adequate fire exits.’

‘I did try to get back to her,’ Kathryn said, unwilling to shift the blame. She looked down at the phone recording her confession. ‘I was in the Ladies when the alarm went off. I hurried back to the foyer, but an usher stopped me from going any further. I shouldn’t have listened to him.’ She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to rewrite history. She grabbed her empty bottle of J2O and looked as if she might throw it. ‘In that short window of opportunity, I could have pushed past the people coming out of the auditorium, but I didn’t. I should have, but I didn’t.’

‘It must have been hard, waiting for her.’

‘I tried to stay calm. The usher said it could be a false alarm.’

‘Which explains why you stayed where you were.’

Kathryn’s laugh was bitter. ‘You can wrap it up how you like. I knew Amelia would be panicking, and that was before …’ Her mouth moved, but it took a moment for the words to come. ‘The whole building shook like there was an earthquake. The lights in the foyer flickered at the same time the noise hit me, and I was plunged into this awful nightmare. I can still hear the screams.’ A hand went to her chest. ‘I shouted for Amelia until I was hoarse. I ran between the two sets of double doors. Back and forth, back and forth.’ She gasped for air from the imagined exertion. ‘People were running out, others were being pushed, and some got trampled on. I tried to get nearer, but someone slammed into me and I fell, breaking three fingers. I don’t remember the pain, not the physical kind. I just remember the screams. My screams. I imagined Amelia calling out to me and I couldn’t reach her.’