‘No. They knew I was in the film, and that he had chosen me, but beyond that it was our secret. He was careful. He told me that nobody else could know, that they wouldn’t understand, that if they did our friendship would have to end. And all this time he was a perfect gentleman, he never touched me. But I was dying for him. To kiss me, that’s what I was thinking about. Him holding my hand. Us being together. He made me fall in love with him. I know now that it’s called grooming, but you have no idea how I felt at the time. As far as I was concerned, it was love.

‘Then, the filming ended and he was gone, back to his day job and I was devastated. Bereaved, even. But he came back, seven weeks later, to show us the final cut of the film, the whole school in the Assembly Hall, and I was thrilled and he made time for a quiet word with me and said: “Private treat?”

‘And I remember nodding, and my mouth was dry, and I was exhausted from loving him, so the thought of being able to see him again, to have him to myself was, it was intoxicating.

‘“Tell your parents you’re going on a sleepover but I’ll meet you instead. We’ll have dinner at a hotel and I’ll book you a room. You’re going to be a famous actress. This is the start of the rest of your life.”

‘That was more or less it. And I agreed, was delighted to agree.

‘He gave me the arrangements – where to stand so that he could pick me up in his car, what to bring, and I obeyed. Went willingly, lamb to the slaughter.’

Rhona got up, went to the sink, and got a glass of water. Then she went back, got a second one, and put it in front of me. She took her time before she spoke again.

‘The hotel was spectacular. The Gustav. It closed for a while, went bust during the recession, I was never so happy about anything. But a Chinese consortium, some chain or other, bought it a few years ago and relaunched it under a new name. Anyway, that was where we went. He picked me up in an ordinary car, a Toyota something. In my imagination I’d been expecting an open-topped sports car or a limousine, but he wasn’t super-rich back then. And I realised later that he only had the suite at the hotel because he’d used it on an advertising shoot, and had the keys till the following day. We didn’t have to go through reception – we went straight from the car park in the lift, he had some kind of card or passcode that got us upstairs.