I use my work laptop for most of the planning, knowing that it will create a digital footprint just in case there ever is an investigation. There is a mammoth spreadsheet containing a list of the forty-five things I need to do before I go. I have searched flights to far-flung places like Malaysia and Thailand. Travel restrictions are being put on some places and so I’m making sure to keep an eye on the situation. I’ll have to jump soon. I order a few things to be delivered to the hotel in Milton Keynes: language-learning books; guidebooks; a universal adaptor thing that could convert any plug on the planet to English. A girl couldn’t be without her hair straighteners after all. The high-quality backpack that cost two hundred and fifty pounds, with the tagline “the world’s most practical backpack” which I figure someone hyper-organized like me would order, is delivered to my London office.

If you were to pack your life into a single bag and walk away, what would you take? There is another spreadsheet that contains an extraordinarily detailed list, including the dimensions and weight of each item. I am constantly adjusting and updating it, saving it often. Making the maximum number of imprints on to the work server, just in case. I mean, obviously I’m not ever going to actually pack this bag, but I am a planner, and everyone knows this. I’m a little notorious for lists. I even have one of those productivity diaries, where I write down everything I want to do each day, ticking things off as I go along. Creating an everlasting journal of the micro-achievements of each and every day. People may laugh but I get a hell of a lot done. Or at least that’s what I tell people; it sounds a lot better than admitting I write everything down because I don’t trust my own memories. I have to approach Free Megan with the same tenacity that would be expected of me.

In addition to the stuff on my laptop, I keep a separate list. In a scrappy little notebook. No digital footprint of the truth of what I was doing, the t’s to cross and i’s to dot to be sure I lay a trail that is convincing without ever alerting anyone to foul play.

I am careful and meticulous. There is too much at stake now.

I begin to consolidate my money, cashing in my premium bonds and selling the handful of shares that I own. Chris and I have a joint account, which might prove tricky. We had opened it the day after we came back from our honeymoon. Drunk on love, high on a post-coital buzz, sleep-deprived and jetlagged, we had walked hand in hand to the bank at the top of the high street and proudly showed our marriage certificate to the uninterested woman sitting in front of us. Every month I would transfer seventy-five percent of my salary to this account and ten percent to our joint savings, and use the remaining fifteen percent to pay a contribution toward Mum’s care. Strictly speaking it’s a state facility, but I top up the basic level of care provision, ensuring Mum gets slightly better food, someone to sit with her a few hours a day, someone who gives a small shit if she has been bathed in the past week.