Maxine is right behind me. ‘Tell me the specifics of anything you’ve done to give yourself away.’ Her voice is quiet. ‘Contact with anybody from your old life. Any crumb of evidence that could lead Zac to finding you here. Please.’

The image of my grandmother in the newspaper photograph, and the caption with her full name, flashes before me. Maxine’s face is expressionless as I tell her. But I leave out the sound of Peggy’s voice last night, and James’s, both of them flailing in the dark.

There is something else I leave out, too, because it belongs entirely to me, and I genuinely don’t think it is why this has happened. It has been over two years since Milly or I reviewed anything on our blog, but it still exists in hyperspace. A straggle of readers occasionally look at it, and every once in a while, a new comment appears.

Last summer, there was a response to a five-star review of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall that I’d written several years earlier. Somebody with the username Abandoned Friend had this to say.

Your review sucks. You don’t address how selfish the heroine is. Whatever her husband did to her, she doesn’t stop to think about the worry and grief she caused the people she left behind. What about her poor aunt, who loved her? She should have found a way to let her know she was okay.

I didn’t know for sure that Abandoned Friend was Milly. But it seemed pretty likely that she was, and that she was talking about Peggy when she mentioned the poor aunt. So I created a new User Name, Brontë Fan, and replied to the comment.

I don’t think you are being fair. If she’d let her aunt know, that would have increased the risk of being discovered, and might also have put her aunt in danger. She knew her aunt was wise and would understand, and hoped the day would come when they could be reunited.

As soon as I posted the message, I felt sick, knowing I shouldn’t have done it.

I haven’t revisited the blog since then, fearing that even the act of opening the page would set off an alert somewhere.

‘Holly.’ The way Maxine says my name, my real name, out of anyone’s hearing, is almost human. For nearly two years, my grandmother has been the only one to call me that.

Despite this, my next words come like an explosion. ‘Why don’t they just arrest him? You know he’s done this.’

‘They need evidence first – that’s what’s happening here right now.’

‘Why didn’t they arrest him two years ago, once you had the hard drive? They – she – wouldn’t be dead if you had.’