Clara felt as though a balloon was slowly expanding inside her chest. Whenever she checked her watch, time seemed to have stood still, though it seemed hours since last she’d looked. Rose and Oliver had driven down from Suffolk and the five of them were now sitting around Mac’s kitchen table, restlessly waiting for the moment when Clara would leave to meet Hannah. ‘We’re coming with you,’ Rose announced. ‘After Zoe follows her and finds out where Hannah lives, I mean. We’re going to come with you to confront her.’

Tom shook his head. ‘No, you and Dad should stay here.’

‘We’re coming,’ Oliver told him grimly. ‘It’s us she’s doing this for. We need to try and reason with her.’

‘And I need to know for certain if she knows where Emily is,’ Rose added. ‘I need to look Hannah in the eye and ask her what happened to my daughter.’

Clara felt the tightening in her chest intensify. She couldn’t stop thinking about Doug and Toby. If Hannah was capable of killing them, what else might she do? Was Luke even still alive? She checked her watch again: it was only quarter to four.

The minutes passed so tensely that despite her fear, Clara was almost relieved when it was finally time for her to leave. ‘Remember,’ Tom said as they all anxiously gathered around her in the hall, ‘if you think she’s on to you, just make your excuses and leave. We’ve got Zoe’s number, we’ll tell her to back off too.’

She nodded and took a deep breath, looking from one to the other of their anxious faces. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said, sounding far more confident than she felt. ‘I’ll be fine.’

The journey from Highbury to Old Street seemed to take forever, her nerves winding tighter and tighter as the Tube rattled through the black tunnels. By the time she reached East London she felt sick with fear. She emerged on to the street to find that a cool wind had picked up, sending scraps of litter dancing across the pavement as she walked. At last she spied Great Eastern Street ahead of her and as she turned into it her mobile buzzed, causing her to almost leap out of her skin. It was a text from Zoe: I’m at the pub a little way down from The Octopus. I’ll call you as soon as I can afterwards.