Claire remembers how it was to be besieged, how she hated the press camped outside; then she remembers her resentment when they drifted away, when other people’s dramas became more interesting. She doesn’t want them back again. She looks out at the passing landscape, and wonders how her son has ended up here, in this part of the country which is unknown to her. Is this where he’s been all this time? She’s curious, but fearful of what he’ll tell her; she wants to know, but isn’t sure she can bear what he might say. Instead she focuses her mind on their reunion, on how wonderful it will be to have him home.

At Pontefract General Infirmary, they pull up at a barrier across the entrance to a Staff Only car park. Matt’s car’s there, double-parked and blocking someone in, and he’s at the wheel with the driver’s door open, a uniformed policeman crouched beside him, chatting as if they were passing the time of day. As Claire climbs from the car, Matt gets out too, switching off his phone and slipping it into his pocket, handing his keys to the policeman in case his car has to be moved. Seeing him brings home the enormity of why they’re there, and suddenly she wants to be close to him in a way she thought she never would again. Who else but he could understand how she’s feeling, how it’s possible to be elated and terrified at the same time? Already she wants to cry, and as he holds out his hand to her – she’s surprised at that, he’s not normally one for PDAs – she grasps it, and finds herself wiping away tears. When he puts his arm round her shoulder and pulls her close, she’s grateful for the support.

‘OK?’ he asks, and she shakes her head, and he says, ‘It’ll be fine. Let’s go get him, and take him home.’

‘Will they let us?’ Claire asks. ‘Just like that?’

Matt doesn’t answer, because he knows, as does she, that’s unlikely to happen. As they walk towards the hospital building, Naylor’s following close behind.

On the ward, more police are waiting, two men in plain-clothes suits incongruous amongst blue nurses’ tunics and patients’ dressing gowns. At the nurses’ station, Naylor speaks to the sister, who pages the doctor in charge of Evan’s care.

But a sixth sense has opened up in Claire, a kind of radar she didn’t know she had. Leaving all of them standing at the station, she walks, then runs along the corridor. No one tries to stop her. Patients and staff stand back, out of her way.

Somehow she knows which way to go. At the end of the ward, there’s a private room. On the bed lies a thin boy, his back to the door.