Would she have done the same? Dora had wondered at the time. Introduced Beryl as her colleague? Or as her friend? Her friend from work?

‘Survival,’ Val was saying. They all turned to her.

‘Survival?’ Beryl said.

‘I read in New Scientist ages ago that the victim identifies with the captor, takes on their values. All to do with Freud. Defence mechanisms, and all that.’

‘That makes no sense,’ Beryl said.

‘Aha,’ Val wagged her finger. ‘If you think that what your captor’s doing is right, then it stops being frightening. You accept it.’ She sipped at her wine. ‘Makes sense to me.’

‘No,’ Beryl said. ‘It’s just potty.’

‘They bond,’ Derek said. ‘Look at the case in Stockholm, that bank robbery. The women there even defended their kidnappers.’

‘Women are especially prone,’ Val went on. ‘They have less control. Think of all those women in history. The Sabines. Battered wives.’

‘They’re not the same,’ Jackie said.

‘Who knows?’

Dora wasn’t sure about any of this. She reached into her handbag and pulled out her cigarettes again.

‘Swap places, Roger,’ she said. ‘So we smokers can sit at the same end.’ She waved the Rothmans at Val.

‘Hearst kept some trinket her captor gave her,’ Derek went on. ‘I rest my case.’

‘That’s odd,’ Jackie said. ‘If she’d been raped, why would she do that?’

Dora took a deep drag at her cigarette, watching the smoke curl towards the ceiling.

‘Are you all right, Dora?’ Val said. ‘You’ve gone awfully quiet.’

‘I’m fine.’

Humans, Dora had read once, were the only animals that showed kindness. And went to war. You had to believe that, otherwise what hope was there?

‘Anyway,’ Roger said. ‘She got twenty-five years. That’s a hell of a sentence.’

‘I wouldn’t survive a day behind bars,’ Janet said. ‘Poor girl.’

‘Excuse me.’ Dora stubbed out her cigarette, pushed back her chair, left a five-pound note on the table and left.

She stood for a moment outside the restaurant, one hand against the plate-glass front, steadying herself.

‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ Val had followed her out. ‘Are your nerves bad today?’

‘Something I ate,’ Dora said. A bitter pill I swallowed. ‘I’ll be fine.’

She pulled herself up straight, walked as steadily as she could. She’d drunk too much, on an empty stomach.

‘I’ll ring you,’ Val said. ‘See how you are.’

Fixated. That’s what she’d been. She saw that now. That wasn’t love. Never had been. Never could be. Her world had become topsy-turvy, and she’d tried to make sense of it, to grope for something to hold onto, like a child in a funhouse with tipping floors and moving walls. She hadn’t played into his dreams. He had played into hers.