Evan’s only been in there ten minutes. He must be refusing to speak.

Naylor gives her a smile that’s a long way from her usual efficient, put-you-at-ease, I’m-in-charge professional greeting. This smile is diffident, uncertain, the same smile of empathic sympathy undertakers wear. She sits down next to Claire, slanting herself towards her, and in an unprecedented move, gives Claire’s hand a squeeze.

‘Are you OK?’ she asks.

‘Not really,’ says Claire.

‘There’s good news,’ says Naylor, and Claire thinks what’s good news for Naylor is probably bad news for her, and she’s right. ‘He will talk to us, but only on condition . . . I’m sorry, Claire.’

‘On what condition?’

‘Only on condition that you and Matt stay well away from all this. He’s told us why he hasn’t been speaking.’

Claire has never asked herself why Evan stopped speaking. She’s assumed it was down to some manifestation of shock, an understandable reaction to a horrific situation, like in the French Revolution when Marie Antoinette’s hair turned white before they chopped off her head.

‘This may be hard to hear,’ Naylor goes on, ‘but he thought the only way to stop you asking about what he went through was to keep silent. He’s desperately, deeply ashamed about the abuse. It’s not an uncommon reaction. But he doesn’t want you to know what happened to him.’

Claire bursts into tears.

As she scrabbles in her handbag for tissues, Naylor puts a hand on her shoulder.

‘I’m sorry, Claire. I’m so sorry to put you all through this. But if we’re to have a chance of catching these men, this may be the only way.’

Claire dabs her eyes and blows her nose.

‘What’s he said, exactly?’

‘He wants to know that you won’t get to hear anything he has to say. That means you staying away from the trial – assuming we get that far – and not asking him anything about our meetings with him.’

‘He wants to exclude us.’

‘He wants to protect you, and himself. He’s afraid if you get to know what he’s been made to do, you’ll love him less.’

Claire begins to cry again.

‘That’s not possible. Please tell him that’s not possible.’

‘I will,’ says Naylor. ‘And I have to say, I think his approach is the right one. Trust me. Some things it really is better not to know. What he wants from you is acceptance of his need to keep this private, between him and us.’

Claire wipes her eyes again.

‘I don’t know what Matt will say. All he talks about is our day in court. He wants to know who did it. He wants to kill them.’