Maybe it was because Ibrahim had declared he’d had a bit of a breakthrough. After weeks and months of careful desensitization, teaching his body and mind that a town full of ordinary people was nothing to be terrified of, they’d finally started to agree with him. He’d managed a full trolley shop at the supermarket in Totnes. Not at peak time on a Saturday afternoon, but still. As well as his usual supplies, he’d bought lemongrass, coconut milk and jasmine rice. And, after smiling at the woman on the checkout counter, he’d gone home and cooked himself a Thai green curry. When he’d eaten it, he hadn’t been able to help wishing Anna had been sitting across the table from him, sharing not only his meal but his victory.

That evening, he’d felt so invincible that he’d called her and told her he was going to be in London to meet her on New Year’s Eve. He’d considered asking her to make the location somewhere less public, somewhere less challenging, but he’d held back. He wasn’t ready to tell her about his agoraphobia yet, and he was worried she’d push for an explanation. If she knew what he struggled with, she might call the meeting off, and that was the last thing he wanted.

He would tell her at some point. Maybe after Big Ben had chimed at midnight, announcing the new year. By then his demons would surely have been soundly routed. There was nothing that was going to stop him getting up to the seventy-second floor of the Shard and meeting Anna, from having a proper conversation face to face. Absolutely nothing.

Brody reached Haytor and stood, his hands on his hips. The rough grass had been glittering with frost further down the hill, but right up here, just covering the rocks and the grassy space at their base, was a light dusting of snow. Brody turned and stared at the village down below. He wasn’t ready to go back yet, so he just kept on striding.

And as he walked, his thoughts were not about imaginary characters or tales of faraway lands, but of his own story over the last year. He’d started January in the same dark, unforgiving place he’d been in for the past eight years, both mentally and emotionally. But he was no longer there. As he made his way along the ridge of a hill, miles of countryside stretching before him, he realized he felt lighter inside.

Oh, he knew he still had a way to go, that further progress needed to be made, but for the first time in years, he could see that the prison door in front of him was wide open. All he had to do now was take a step and walk right through it.

The lightness inside spurred him on, and when he reached a small rocky outcrop, he clambered on top of it and yelled for all the world to hear. At first, it was just noise, but then words started forming in his head, and he let them out too. ‘I’m out of the pit!’ he yelled to no one in particular. ‘I’m freeeee…’