For a moment the friendship they had shared rose up and she almost felt sorry for him, then she remembered where she was and any sympathy vanished.

‘What happened?’ she said. ‘Who was it?’

He did not reply. ‘How could you?’ he said. He blinked rapidly, then brushed his mouth with his fingers. He looked on the verge of losing whatever control he had. ‘How could you do that?’

She felt suddenly uncertain. The way he was looking at her was different; the false cheerfulness and optimism was gone, replaced with suspicion and a hardness that made her very uncomfortable. The landscape had changed in a way she didn’t understand.

‘Do what?’ she said.

‘That was the police,’ he said. ‘They said someone signalled an SOS last night. It was seen by a teenager.’

It was the police? Then where the fuck were they? Why had they left?

‘I got rid of them,’ he said. ‘I’m good at that.’ His lips started to quiver and he steadied himself against the wall. ‘But it was hard, because I couldn’t believe you had done that.’

She bit her bottom lip. ‘I – I want to see my family,’ she said.

He clutched his head in his hands as though he was in severe pain. ‘You made me do all this for nothing. For nothing.’

‘I didn’t make you do anything,’ she said quietly. There was no longer any point in playing along with his delusions. ‘This was all in your head, Guy.’

His head snapped up and he stared at her. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No! It was not! This is my life! I did all this for you. All of it. We made a mistake, Annabelle, when we were younger. We didn’t see we were meant to be together until it was too late. But we fixed it! Together, we fixed it!’

‘No,’ she said. ‘You’re mistaken.’

‘Don’t say that!’ he shouted. ‘I won’t let you say that! Don’t lie to me, Annabelle. You’re treating me like I’m a fool. Like I made all this up. I won’t have it. Maybe you changed your mind. I didn’t change mine.’