The incessant drumming of metal against metal is getting louder as I pass by the disused swimming pool, the faded tiles on the top step just visible above the stagnant green water that fills it. Pieces of wood, discarded drink cans and what looks like an old overall litter the surface, and I shudder at the thought of what has become of the items that don’t float.

I creep forward as if I’m a sniper in training, sprinting the last few metres and pushing my back up against the jagged wall. I imagine what I’ll say if Tom, the head gardener, comes around the corner to see me playing a grown-up game of hide and seek. Or even worse, if Tristan is watching this all unfold in real-time on the cameras up in the security lodge. Though that concern is allayed when I remember him telling me that Leon had limited the coverage to the immediate concert site this week.

I instinctively crouch down as I enter the stable block, staying below the line of the half-height walls of the stalls, not knowing what I’m about to encounter. Suddenly the banging that had been reverberating around the stone walls stops and I can’t help but gasp as I hear a low groan.

‘Hello, is someone there?’ comes a voice.

I hold a hand to my mouth, willing myself to stop and think before I answer.

‘Please,’ says the voice. ‘Please help me.’

‘Jacob?’ I breathe, rounding the corner of the stall on my hands and knees.

‘Naomi!’ he cries out. ‘Oh my god, please help me.’

I can’t help but recoil at the sight of him, bloodied and bruised. His ankles are tied to chair legs and his wrists handcuffed to the bars of the stable stool. I instinctively want to go to him and set him free, but something’s holding me back and he can sense my reticence.

‘You have to hurry,’ he says. ‘She’s only just left, but she won’t be long.’

‘Who?’ I ask, as I crawl through the dark brown sludge puddles on the slimy stone floor.

‘Who do you think?’ he says bitterly. ‘I told you what she was capable of. I told you what she’d do if she found me.’

‘Vanessa’s done this to you?’

He nods, his normally piercing blue eyes darkened by fear.

‘But how did you get here?’ I ask, as I set about untying the rope that is bound tightly around his ankles.

‘She lured me here,’ he says. ‘Pretending to be you.’

‘What?’ I ask, looking around for something to prise the handcuffs apart. ‘When?’

‘After I met you at the hotel on Monday night,’ he says. ‘I got a text about ten minutes after you left, asking me to come to Tattenhall as you thought I’d be safer here.’

‘But I would never have done that.’