‘Hello,’ Dave said softly, leaning closer. He smelled of coffee and his eyes were red, as if he’d been crying. ‘Hey. Oh, love. I’ve been so worried.’

‘Dave,’ she croaked, the fog in her head clearing a little. She’d been leaving him, she remembered with a guilty start. She’d packed up her bags, written a note, posted the keys back through the front door. But . . . What had happened? How had he found her? Everything was shifting around in her memory, blurring and slippery when she tried to focus. Was this a dream or something?

‘You’re in hospital, you’ve had a car accident,’ Dave said. His face seemed to be zooming in and out of focus, it was making her head spin. ‘No bones are broken, thank goodness, but the doctors think you’re concussed.’ He gave a tiny smile. ‘You’ve been saying all sorts in your sleep, you know. “I never meant to kill him,” you were mumbling a few minutes ago. You must have had a right old bump on your head,’ he added, squeezing her hand gently. ‘The other driver was absolutely fine, by the way. The cars are a bit of a mess, but you haven’t killed anybody.’ He stroked a finger tenderly down the side of her face, then raised a teasing eyebrow. ‘Unless there’s anything in your past that you want to tell me, that is . . .’

Tears leaked out of Bunny’s eyes as the words sank into her consciousness, like tiny knives. Unless there was anything in her past that she wanted to tell him. Oh God. Where should she start? She could almost laugh, if it wasn’t so spectacularly awful. If only he knew . . .

‘Hey,’ he said gently. ‘Come on, it’s okay.’

She tried to shake her head, but it hurt. ‘It’s not okay,’ she whimpered. ‘It’s not.’

‘I know this must all seem a bit weird, Bun, but—’

A sob burst from her throat. ‘That’s not even my name,’ she cried, closing her eyes so that she didn’t have to look at him any more. Her head was thumping now and she experienced a sudden vivid flash of memory: her wheels skidding on the road, a navy-blue Toyota coming towards her, a scream of terror and then the impact of collision, being thrown back in her seat. But she hadn’t killed anybody, according to Dave. So that made it two people she hadn’t quite despatched, then. She was building up rather a collection.

There was a pause. ‘The police did say something about your name,’ he replied, sounding worried. ‘Something about the car being registered to a different person – Rachel, was it? But . . .’