‘Why can’t you two see it?’ The chair turns under me, nearly throwing me off. ‘Michael made those highlights. He wants me to go back. Diane is gone now. She’s taking a flight somewhere. Cat told me. Now she’s out the way, Michael wants me to take Liberty’s place. He thinks I’m still the same meek, mild idiot he knew all those years ago. That I’ll just walk in and do whatever he wants. The gates will be open now. He’ll be waiting for me.’

‘So why the climbing rope?’ says Dee, helping Darcy stick a Post-it note on her chest.

Left breast.

‘You never know with Michael,’ I say. ‘I want to be prepared. Everything’s always slippery. But one way or another, I’m going to end this today and bring Liberty home.’

‘Jesus, Lorna,’ says Nick. ‘This is all sounding a bit vigilante.’

I climb down from the chair with Liberty’s climbing rope and shoes. ‘Don’t you get it? Michael has made a trap. He’s a control freak. If I don’t do what he wants, he’ll hurt my daughter.’ I put a hand to my mouth, emotion suddenly overwhelming me. ‘And the police will do nothing. Liberty has run away from home.’

‘Has she?’ says Dee. ‘It seems to me she’s facing things. Maybe it’s you who’s running away, with all these high fences and gates. I mean, look at this place. It’s Fort Knox. This is running, Lorna. Liberty’s tackling everything head on. And she’ll be just fine.’

‘No. She won’t be.’

‘Liberty is clever,’ says Dee. ‘She can work out fact from fiction.’

‘She’s no match for him.’

‘Are you sure?’ says Dee. ‘Because the last time I checked, Liberty was a girl genius. All those sudoku and chess challenges she does on Facebook … she’s like lightning.’

‘I don’t know what she does on Facebook,’ I admit. ‘She blocked me.’

‘How come?’

‘I sent a few messages, you know. Telling some of her classmates that Liberty wasn’t allowed out in the evenings. Just in case they got the wrong idea.’

Dee raises an eyebrow. ‘All those human rights marches you used to go on. Now you’re a Nazi dictator.’

‘Can you blame me?’

‘Yes, I can blame you,’ says Dee. ‘I blame you for this whole thing. If you hadn’t kept Liberty locked up, she’d never have run away.’

‘But I’m her parent,’ I say. ‘It’s my job to keep her safe.’