Was that Fay lying there in a small heap; was that me being cut free from a jagged mass of deadly metal and pulled through a shattered window? Was that me lying beside Fay, who began to choke; did I turn her so she could breathe before I fell unconscious myself from the pain? Did the motorists directed on to the hard shoulder thank God it wasn’t them as they slowed to have a horrified peek at the limp huddles that were being hastily covered over? Was that the body of the Hobbit woman I had just stepped around, Northanger Abbey gripped in one pale and lifeless hand, her ever-moving lips stilled for good?

Was that the couple who had whispered in front of me entwined forever in a ghastly screaming death? The tall boy who had gone up to talk to his friends lying on his back near the central reservation, next to a stunned man who’d escaped without a scratch.

The boy who had opened his eyes and stood, slowly, slowly, and hobbled to the side of the road, blood in his eyes, blinking in the police’s floodlights. Who, after a while, let a paramedic wrap a blanket around his shoulders and then slumped on the grassy bank, staring at the mangled body of a piebald horse. Dead; dead just like the old lady whose white hair poked in tufts from beneath another blanket. Was that the old Maggie there? Had I left a piece of me forever in the terrible wreck?

I stared at the dark damp road and felt a hot tear trickle down my icy cheek, and I shivered properly now, trying to banish these dark thoughts from my exhausted head. After them chased confused images of Alex and Fay together. I shut my mind down as best I could, and realised suddenly that I was freezing.

Climbing back in the car, I cuddled the dog until I started to get warm. Then I turned the radio on, the heating up, and drove on to the next service station, where I bought tea and chocolate and a copy of Vogue in Bel’s honour, and threw my fags away before travelling on to Cornwall. And it was only when I got to Pendarlin hours later in the pitch black that I actually exhaled.

In the morning the wind had settled and I awoke late to find a thin sprinkling of frost on the ground and the sun shining, albeit weakly. I made strong coffee, tuned the radio to Radio 3 and ate some cornflakes before letting Digby out.