I think about those plates set out, ready and waiting for the imaginary guests who would never visit her: those perfect parents who lived and breathed in her mind. She had created a fantasy as solid as real life. With Freya’s dangerous, misguided help.

I understand. I understand everything. All I’ve been doing is trying to get to the truth and instead I’ve become tangled in falsehood after falsehood, layers of fantasy, layers of lies. And I’ve fallen victim to the biggest falsehood of them all.

‘It’s wrong,’ I gasp out to Freya. ‘You say you want to help people, but that isn’t helping. You lied to Sarah, and you did even worse to me … You haven’t changed, you haven’t learned. You’ve done the same thing all over again.’

Beside me, on the sofa, Charlie is stirring. He stretches, blinks; he is waking up. ‘Mummy?’ he says, reaching for me. ‘Mummy, where are we?’

But darkness is seeping into the edges of my eyes, dragging a curtain of black across my vision. I can’t feel my limbs; my whole body has gone numb. All I can feel is my heart, hurling itself against the walls of my chest, lurching, stuttering. I can’t control it, I can’t even breathe.

Stumbling, I try to get to my feet. I need to get me and Charlie out of here, but the pain in my chest is blinding. I can’t see anything, or feel anything, except the shuddering of my heart. A total darkness is descending on me. I reach out a hand, try to grasp hold of something, anything, but there’s nothing there.

Somewhere, far away and very faintly, I think I hear a siren wail.

I fall into the blackness for seconds, for minutes.

I fall into the blackness for what feels like days.

Chapter 36

When I wake up, there’s a white ceiling above me. Rows and rows of white tiles. Under my head, there is a soft pillow.

I close my eyes.

When I open them again, I’m still in the same place. I move my hands, and my palms brush against a blanket. Soft and real, under my touch.

There’s a familiar smell. For a split second, it sets my stomach roiling. Then it eases, because I know it’s all right this time.

I’m in hospital. I am lying in a hospital bed.

When I turn my head to the side, I glimpse the drip in my arm, the metal pole, the clear bag above me. I’m careful not to move too suddenly, not to dislodge anything. I can’t tell how fragile I still am.

I see someone, too, at the side of my bed.

Alastair.

My lower lip splits when I try to smile. My body has been suffering. I feel everything now. The pain is in every sinew and joint.