I had been waiting for the right moment to broach this, but she was at her most blank. My face was going red. All I could be was blunt. ‘You need to promise me you’ll destroy those materials if you get your hands on them. If he did pass on that micro card in London, it was probably filled with his home-made porn.’

At last, she reacted. ‘I know this must be difficult for you. I promise that any footage of you will be safe with us – it ends with us.’

I interrupted. ‘There may be other women. Maybe Jane is one. If there are, you need to protect them, too.’

‘We will.’ She adjusted her position and the receipt disappeared.

‘Use Helen Graham –I already set up bank accounts and a credit card in that name.’

‘We can get you some clerical work in a hospital, arrange the paperwork showing you have no criminal record. Practise thinking of yourself as Helen Graham.’

‘I already am.’

‘Whatever happens, we’ll get you out in plenty of time before your baby is born.’

Maxine stood and hobbled slowly past me, using the cane heavily and looking at the ground. She whispered as she moved, her lips as still as a ventriloquist’s dummy’s. ‘A final word. As comfortable as we will try to make you – you will never be properly you again. All of this. Everyone here you love. It never works if you try to keep those connections. You can’t be half-in, half-out.’ She made me think of a spurned godmother or wicked stepmother reciting an impossible task, or cursing a fairy-tale princess.

But I was no princess. And Zac was no prince. When she reached the nearest gap in the plants that enclosed the park, a man appeared, aiming his laser beam eyes at me, as if expecting to discover me with someone else. There was a flicker of surprise when he did not. Did he imagine I’d heaved my six-months-pregnant self to the park to meet a lover?

He made a show of his courtesy in stepping to the side for an old woman, leaning towards the trunk of a sweet chestnut tree but keeping his eyes on me. She passed him with a stiff nod of gratitude, as if it hurt her neck to do it.

As soon as she was gone, he stormed along the path until he was glowering over me.

‘Get up, Holly.’

‘No.’

‘What?’ He was amazed I’d used the word.

‘I said no.’

He changed tack. He shook his head wearily. ‘You forget things. You make yourself ill. But you walk two miles when you don’t have to. Are you trying to kill our baby?’

The last sentence made me catch my breath. ‘How can you say that?’

‘Isn’t it obvious?’

‘No. Why are you here? You’re supposed to be at work.’