By the bedroom door was Zac’s laptop case. It was pretty much always in whatever room he was in. I listened as his snoring deepened. My heart was beating fast, counting time. He was so floppy he couldn’t be faking. Could he? Softly, mindful of the fact that my body occupied space differently, I slipped out of bed, wiggled my fingers beneath the mattress on my side, and retrieved the portable drive from where I’d stowed it. This would have been a terrible long-term hiding place, but it was useful for immediate access.

Padding across the carpet as lightly as I could, I swept up the laptop case, glided into the bathroom, turned the knob so it didn’t click when I shut the door, then released it with care, all the time listening to Zac snoring away on the other side of the wood. Quickly, I plugged the drive into the laptop without even removing the machine from the case. I let the towel drop from the rail so it draped over the whole of it.

Something new occurred to me. In all of my anxiety about the films Zac made, I hadn’t considered the likelihood that his laptop contained scanned copies of my incriminating hospital journal. For others to get access to the secret world that existed in my own head, for Maxine to know that my compulsion to write was bigger than my discretion, for MI5 to learn that I’d broken countless data protection and privacy laws with my stories – all of these things together made me feel faint with panic and humiliation.

There will be no adverse consequences to you from anything we discover as a result of your assistance. That was what Maxine said. I had no choice but to trust that she would protect me, and any other women, from whatever was on Zac’s machine.

Twenty minutes had passed since I plugged the memory stick into the laptop. I was still in the bathroom, sitting on the loo even though for once I didn’t need it. All I wanted was to drag my six-months-pregnant self back into bed to sleep. The door was halfway open before I could stop it – I hadn’t turned the lock because no amount of oil stopped it from making a grinding noise that would have woken Zac. ‘I’m peeing, Zac.’ I stretched out a leg to try to kick the door closed, but he pushed it open anyway. ‘Honestly.’ My voice was a high-pitched squeak. ‘Get out.’