With a cry of frustration Clara went to one of the other doors and, finding it unlocked, switched on the light to find a bedroom with a mattress on the floor, a small wooden cabinet by its side, on top of which was a key. She snatched it up and went back to the locked door. Inserting the key with shaking hands she turned it and pushed the door open. The room was in darkness but when she found the switch she cried out in horror. There was Luke, lying on the bed, gagged and bound with thick electrical tape, his eyes bulging at her as he let out a desperate, muffled cry.

Clara stood frozen as Rose ran past her. Throwing her arms around her son she cried, ‘Oh my darling, my darling boy,’ and then Oliver was there too, kneeling down and cutting Luke free with one of Mac’s knives before he too took his son in his arms.

Luke coughed and spluttered when his gag was removed, crying out with desperate relief. He looked dreadful: thin and bruised, with blood all over his T-shirt, his eyes hollow in his pale drawn face, his arms covered in knife wounds, some of them large and weeping. When Luke looked past his parents to where she stood he said her name with such relief and longing that she jolted out of her paralysis and went to him, holding his thin body to her tightly, all the tension and confusion and fear of the past weeks surging out of her in one loud sob.

Finally she felt him stiffen in her arms and she turned to follow his gaze to where Hannah now stood by the door, her arms still held tightly behind her back by Tom, her eyes bright, almost febrile with excitement. Luke rose unsteadily to his feet and went to her, crossing the room in a burst of energy and fury. ‘You fucking crazy bitch,’ he shouted, his face red with rage, ‘you fucking evil cunt!’

Hannah laughed. ‘Temper temper, Luke.’

‘I’ll kill you, I’ll fucking kill you!’

‘Oh for God’s sake, stop whining,’ Hannah said. ‘I fed you, didn’t I? Sometimes?’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘Even took you to the potty when you needed it.’

Clara saw Luke’s face burn with humiliation. And then she did something she’d never done before. She went over to where Hannah was standing and she hit her full in the face, so hard that the sound rang out into the room, her palm smarting with the force.

Hannah gasped, her eyes flashing briefly with anger before she recovered and, setting her face in a sneer, said, ‘Well, look who’s found a pair of balls at last.’

Clara looked at her in disgust. ‘What now?’ she asked. ‘You’ll go to prison for this! What was the point?’