‘Really?’ I was fascinated. I saw the headlines now: ‘Peer locks up his daughter.’ ‘Does he have British citizenship?’

‘Yes,’ she nodded. ‘Dual citizenship.’

‘What’s his connection in the Lords?’

‘Never mind,’ she said. She seemed slightly hyper, her mind skittering from topic to topic. ‘That’s not important now. Rose, he has made me a prisoner here again to stop me speaking out.’

‘Again?’ I leaned forward. ‘Speaking out about what?’

There was a knock on the door and we both jumped. It was the housekeeper.

‘Would you like some tea or coffee?’ she asked, her small pebble eyes scanning the room quickly. Maya waved her away impatiently. ‘Not now. Please, leave us.’ She ground out her cigarette in the ugly marble ashtray and then immediately lit another one. Her French manicure was chipped. ‘He did not like my boyfriend. Amongst other things, he was a black man, he was African. My father doesn’t believe in mixing cultures or religion.’

‘And what religion do you follow?’

‘That doesn’t matter, does it?’ she laughed rather hysterically. ‘I follow my own god.’

My heart sank. I’d hoped I’d been wrong about some of my assumptions, about facing the facts that seemed obvious about Maya.

‘I saw you on that march in London,’ I said. ‘The pro-Islam one. With Nadif, weren’t you? There was a picture in the paper. Were those his ideals you mentioned?’

She looked confused for a moment. ‘Ah, yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, I remember now. He wanted to go. I was there to – it was—’

There was another knock on the door and a rather stooped middle-aged man in a slightly threadbare suit entered the room. He was paper-thin, a shadow of a man.

‘Hello,’ he said politely. ‘Excuse me, but, Maya, I think you should come with me now.’

‘I won’t,’ she said rudely. ‘Go away.’

‘It’s time for your medicine.’ He smiled apologetically at me. ‘Do excuse me, Miss—’

‘You can’t make me take that poison.’

I didn’t know what to do. I stood up, quickly pocketing the tiny tape recorder. ‘Please, Mr—’

‘Dr Fisher,’ he smiled again, stepping towards Maya. ‘Come on now, Maya. Be a good girl. Your father is so worried about you, you know that.’

‘Rose, please,’ she said, staring at me wildly. I was starting to feel like I was trapped in some sort of Victorian melodrama. I thought of Mrs Rochester locked in her husband’s attic. ‘Please help me.’

‘I really think –’ I said rather helplessly to the doctor – ‘I think you should do what Ms Kattan—’

‘And I think you should go now, don’t you, love?’ a voice interrupted. I spun round. The young man called Zack stared at me from the door. ‘In fact, you were just leaving, weren’t you?’