‘We were staying at Rin’s, Di had gone to her sister’s for the weekend, no one was waiting up for us.’ The whole thing was a blur, snatches of memory here and there, a collection of pictures she’d never been able to put in order. ‘It was late, I don’t know what time – one o’clock, two? Josh went to the bar and I looked around and I suddenly realized I couldn’t see Rin.’ Here the sequence in her mind was clearer – a little. Was Rin okay? She’d gone looking for her. Was she throwing up? She remembered lurching towards the loos, a strip of little lights along the floor like the emergency exit path on a plane. The door to the ladies – almost falling through it as someone opened it from the other side. Calling her name – nothing – then looking under the doors for Rin’s feet, losing her balance, putting her hand in something wet. Lurching out again. ‘This girl came after me, asked if I was looking for my friend. She said she’d seen her, she was in a state, her boyfriend had taken her home. I knew it wasn’t Josh – I’d just seen him at the bar, they’d never have left without me.’

‘What happened?’ His eyes still hadn’t moved.

Robin looked up and down the street. ‘This bloke had got her. Taken her. He must have been watching her. He waited ’til she was way too drunk, almost out of it.’ The feel of the night air on her face, half running, half falling out of the club onto the pavement, suddenly dead sober. Which way did they go? She should have asked for help – why hadn’t she asked for help, the bouncer, anyone?

‘He’d dragged her round the corner, into this yard off an alley. I never would have seen them but I heard him over the wall, this kind of … grunt. When I got there, she was lying on the ground. He was pulling her jeans off.’

Samir looked sick.

‘I went for him.’ Behold the high-kicking, karate-chopping teen ninja girl. ‘I started hitting him, kicking him, trying to pull him off her.’ Rin trying to crawl out from under him but she was so drunk, pinned on her back, she couldn’t turn over. ‘Then I kicked him in the face and he pulled my legs out from under me, just put his arm out and …’ She mimed, the single sweep that had brought her crashing to the tarmac. ‘I hit my head, really hard – the next thing I knew, he had his hand …’ She put her fingers round her throat.