And then I remember where I am. The clutter on the mantelpiece is casting a shadow on the wall, turning the bottles of antiseptic into rows of toy soldiers looming over the room. I clutch my phone like it’s a weapon that can somehow protect me as the events of the past twenty-four hours return in fragments. I see myself, red-faced and frantic, running down the driveway, bundling Joe into his car seat. I see my gloved hands clutching the steering wheel on that interminably long journey from London, Joe screaming his head off in the back. I see the house rising out of the lake like some mythical creature in the dusk and a shiver slices through me.

I need to shake this feeling, need to think clearly, work out what to do next. I look down at my phone again. The lack of signal makes me uneasy but then I tell myself that at least this way Mark will be unable to trace me. To him, to the outside world, I have fallen off the radar, ceased to exist. Once, that idea would have terrified me. Now I feel reassured by it.

I put the phone back in my pocket and sit up. Joe is sound asleep on the cushions next to me. Sharp winter light is streaming through the bare windows, highlighting the grime and dust that covers every surface in the room.

I remember the cages and the skull, the kitchen with no amenities, and my heart sinks. I’d been so exhausted last night, so desperate to dissolve into dead sleep, the precariousness of the situation hadn’t really registered. Now as I stand here looking down at my little boy, his chest rising and falling, the reality of what I have done, what I have brought my child into, begins to sink in.

I pick up the blanket I slept in, fold it carefully and place it on the armchair. It smells of mould and animal dung. God knows what I inhaled as I slept in it last night. I glance at Joe. He’s swaddled in another filthy blanket, his blond curls matted to his forehead. What kind of a mother does this? I ask myself. Who would bring her child into this? He should be waking up in his own bed, with his spotless Mr Men quilt and cuddly toys standing guard about his head. In an hour or so he’d be at nursery, making paper chains for Christmas and playing with his friends. Now he’s lying in some dump.

‘I just wanted to keep you with me,’ I whisper to his sleeping form. ‘I’m sorry, baby. I’m so sorry.’

My eyes fill with tears as I think about what I’ve run away from. The twisted feeling in my gut every single day, those four walls, with their exotic-bird-printed wallpaper, bearing down on me, his voice telling me what I’d done wrong that day, how he could have done it better. He could always do it better. ‘Lisa, are you actually that stupid?’