‘Liam started shouting at her to piss off,’ she continued in barely a whisper, ‘said it was none of her business. But she didn’t seem to be cowed at all. She was threatening to call the police. I slunk back because I couldn’t cope with it all. I felt like my head was going to explode. The bell started clanging to announce that the crossing was closing and there was an announcement about a non-stopping train. All I could hear was Liam and that woman shouting at each other and I was feeling really sick and then …’ Anya started to cry, covering her face with her hands. ‘I don’t think I can do this …’ she said with a strangled sob.

‘You have to,’ I said in a low voice. ‘I need to know the truth. It’s the only way I can support you.’

She nodded miserably, eyes swimming. Taking in a shuddery breath, she carried on. ‘Then I heard the warning scream of a train that wasn’t stopping at the station. The fast train to London.’ Anya was almost hyperventilating now and I could feel my own eyes prickling at her distress. ‘That Alice woman was calling Liam all sorts and she even belted him with her handbag.’ She made a strange sound that was partway between a laugh and a sob. ‘And then he, he …’ she gasped, ‘he … shoved her, once, twice, and she fell. She fell onto the tracks.’

As she dissolved into sobs I went and sat next to her on the sofa. I took one of her hands, which was icy cold and clammy. She squeezed mine back so hard I could feel the imprint of her nails.

‘She was unconscious,’ she said through her tears. ‘We were both yelling about how to help her up and I even tried to reach down there, but Liam shouted that it was too late. And then, and then …’

‘The train came,’ I said quietly, closing my eyes.

I didn’t want to, God knew, but I could see it, see it all. The woman falling into the tracks and the panic of the moment as the scream of the train began to approach. The whoosh and suck of the air and the impact. The train slamming on brakes and slowing, slowing …

I shuddered at the mental pictures suddenly flooding through my mind. The force of that speeding train meeting a soft, human body. It was too terrible to imagine and I tried to jerk my mind’s eye away.

We sat without speaking for a few moments. I chafed her cold hands and she cried quietly, head bowed.

‘What happened next?’ I said finally.

Anya took her hands from mine and rooted in a pocket for a tissue. She gave her nose a loud blow before replying.

‘We ran,’ she said, and then looked up at me, her face unreadable.

‘Why?’

A flash of irritation crossed her face, surprising me. ‘Why?’