Then he just started muttering something under his breath.

‘What is it?’ I said. ‘What are you saying?’

But then I heard it. He was saying her name, over and over. Noora Noora Noora.

Then he took my hand, gripped it tightly and said, ‘Do you forgive me, Noora? Tell me you forgive me?’

His eyes were all wild and flashing, just like they had been when he’d trapped me in the room, and I got scared then. I knew this was only going to get worse and that I might even end up back in that room.

Then he fell to his knees and clasped his hands together, like he was praying or something.

‘You …’ he said, shaking his head from side to side. ‘Where did you come from? How did you find me?’

I opened my mouth to tell him it was just me and then I remembered the make-up and my reflection in the mirror. He wasn’t seeing me, he was seeing her. The dead mother. And you know what? I liked the fact that he was scared so I just stood there and let him think that I was her. Let him feel scared like I’d felt when he’d locked me in that room.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. His hands were still gripping the table but his face had softened. ‘I didn’t mean to do it. I really didn’t. Do you forgive me, Noora? Do you forgive me?’

Noora. It’s funny the effect a name can have on you. I remember the pride I felt when he’d started calling me Number 1 after my hunting success. Even though Grace was my name, Number 1 was the name I’d earned. It said so much. Like he was never ‘Dad’ but Sarge because that’s what he’d always been to me, a rank, a superior, a soldier. Never a dad. But Noora. Well, that name has the same effect on me as Isobel’s name. It’s a warm hand on my back. Beautiful and comforting. And hearing it, thinking about her lovely face smiling up at me from the photo, filled me with a burst of strength.

‘Please, I beg you,’ he cried, still on his knees. ‘Answer me. Do you forgive me? Tell me you forgive me?’

I stood looking at him. His eyes were pleading with me just as I’d pleaded with him to let me out of that room. Now he wanted my forgiveness. After the terrible way he treated me, the coldness he showed me day after day.

‘No, I don’t,’ I said, staring back at him with Noora’s eyes. ‘I will never forgive you.’

Then I turned and walked out of the kitchen. I could hear him wailing behind me but I didn’t go back. Instead I went to my room and grabbed my doss bag and some clothes. As I walked past his bedroom on my way out I saw a book lying on his bed. It was the one with the squiggly writing in it that he kept by his bed at all times, the one with her photograph in it. I remember him catching me with it that time, when I first saw her face, and how mad he was. In fact, every time I saw him with it he looked crazed. It had that effect on him. So I decided to do him a favour, a kind of farewell gift. I went into his room, grabbed the book and stuffed it into my bag. Maybe without this he’d stop the madness.