As she had promised, Clio took most of the press on herself, coming forward as the only witness willing to be named and using the shreds of her old faded fame to draw the headlines around her. The papers let her shine, allowed her to ascend to Madonna-like status; Clio required no contextualizing second name. She saw in newsprint Clio reincarnated as one of the policeman’s ‘many lovers’ in a ‘free love commune’; read a pseudonymed Fran (‘Cecilia’) describing how ‘Officer 1’ had pressured her into experimenting with her sexuality even though she’d protested she was a lesbian.

It got so bad Sam couldn’t sleep in the same bed as Dale any more. Any tiny noise he made, she started, jumped, spent hours staring at him with her eyes watering onto the pillows, trying to see if his sleeping face gave anything away. She would wait till the baby woke and carry him downstairs for his bottle, lay him in the basket by the sofa and stare at the living-room ceiling. On a good night, she managed three hours’ sleep. The bad nights felt like they were killing her.

One day she came home, and Dale and her brother were in the living room, a map of Surrey spread out on the coffee table.

‘What you doing?’ she asked. They didn’t reply for a bit, and then her brother muttered, you know what we’re doing, Sam.

‘We’re going to make that cunt pay, Sam. We’re going to sort this for you.’ Oh Dale, her man, always her man, shaking with the anger of it.

‘You won’t do that, love,’ she said. ‘How you going to do that? You’re not a hard man.’

Sam herself gave testimony only three times. The first was to the lawyer her friend Kevin had found for them when she’d asked him, painting on a glib face – ‘I’ve got these mates who need legal advice. Potentially huge case, ramifications across the entire justice system, but they’ve no money.’ The second time was to Clio’s excited young journalist, who came round to her house when the baby was two weeks old and stayed for hours, through naps and changes, not taking any hints. He phoned her again and again throughout the following months, checking her story, clarifying words and turns of phrase until Dale told him not to bloody call again and hung up.

The third time was in the small room where the hearing happened, Clio and Spider sitting outside sipping water in plastic cups, waiting for their turns, Avril walking Elliot round and round the corridors, bent over and moving at his toddler snail-pace till her back spasmed. Clio grabbed for her hand as she walked in. Sam did not return the grip.