But she didn’t get chance. The pink door with its unicorn poster burst open. Nick stood there with wide eyes and ragged breath. Wordlessly, he grabbed her arm and dragged her out of the room.

‘Surprise for your mother, Josie, back in a mo.’

‘Nick? What’s going on? Let me go.’ A wild thought appeared: someone higher up than Miller had insisted that she had to be locked up right now. But she cut that idea down immediately because there was no way Nick would be part of that.

But he didn’t let her go. He marched her into the neighbouring room, where Jane had exercise equipment. When he slammed the door, she noticed he had a laptop under his arm.

‘Nick, what is this? We’ve left Josie alone. Tell me.’

His heart went out to her. Even here, with Josie in her own bedroom, surrounded by family, Anna was fearful to be away from her daughter. He opened the laptop, put it on the floor, and forced her gently to her knees. He knelt beside her. That was when the penny dropped, and her eyes widened.

‘No, what are you doing? I don’t want to watch it. No.’

‘I know it’ll be hard, but you have to.’

‘No, no, no. Why are you doing this?’

She tried to stand, but he dragged her back down, and put his arm around her, locking her in place. It was a somewhat rough grip, but the lips that touched her cheek were so soft.

‘To give you peace.’

Anna and Marc stand before the car, washed in its headlights like actors lit up on a stage. Her head is bowed, face in her hands. The head shakes. Marc steps out of frame. The sound of the rain materialises as the door is opened, and then the picture jerks slightly as Marc enters the vehicle.

The frame moves backwards, stops, moves forward at a turn, slipping past Anna. It curves in the black road as the car makes a turn and heads back the way it came. Nothing to see but black road and hard rain striking the windscreen and white lines passing beneath the vehicle, like laser fire from a craft in deep space. Nothing to hear but the engine and low murmurs of grief from Marc.

And then, in the road, they appear. Two shapes, unmoving, lying together in the centre of the road, smashed by rain.

‘Oh Jesus no,’ Marc hisses.