‘I don’t fucking know. I suppose I didn’t want to get involved. I’ve had my own shit to deal with. Worried that you’d side with him and not believe me, which incidentally you would have. And you knew what he was like.’ She points at me. ‘Don’t try to deny it. You fucking knew.’

I did. I was sneaking around, trying to find out what he was up to almost from the beginning. She stubs out her cigarette on the same saucer Pam used and glances around again.

‘So, what time do you pick them up? I can come with you.’

‘I don’t pick them up. He took them. He took my babies.’

My God. She doesn’t know. I wait for her to say ‘well I’m not surprised, look at the state of this place’ or, like other people have said ‘oh, to give you a break until you are feeling better’. But she doesn’t. We sit in silence for a few minutes. Paula is processing it all. Finally she speaks.

‘This is a mess. All the Facebook shit and the stuff on the telly. You need to do damage limitation here. Let me help you.’

It’s the first time since all this started last year that anyone has directly offered to help me. I’m unsure because it’s Paula. But what have I got to lose?

‘How? How can you help? And what makes you such an expert?’

‘I’ve done it loads. Usually the other way round, you know, for my mates who’ve got caught shagging someone’s husband. Or wife.’ It’s tense as she normalises what has become my life. ‘Just think of me as a kind of clean-up service, you know, like in those gangster films when they come and move the body.’ She smiles a little and so do I. ‘So you need to tell me everything. Then go somewhere safe.’

‘Safe? This isn’t a film, Paula.’

‘I know. But you need to get out of here. Just until it dies down. Which it will, you know.’

‘Yeah. I was just on my way to stay with Katy for a couple of days.’

Paula’s eyebrows shoot up her forehead.

‘Not Katy …?’

‘Yep. She’s lovely. Obviously I hated her at first, but she’s just the same as me. Gullible.’

Paula drags her chair over and sits next to me. She links arms with me and she smells like vanilla.

‘You’re not gullible. You’re a strong person. A professional. But you know what, Caz, you’ve been abused. He’s a bastard. Fucking selfish. He’s made you think you are less than you are. And that those other girls are responsible.’ She pauses and rests her head on my shoulder. ‘And with us. Well. That’s how abusers work, isn’t it? Isolate their victim.’

I nod.