‘Right.’ He stopped talking and she heard his breath catch in distress. ‘My wrists and ankles were bound. She had a knife. Told me to get out of the car and when I wouldn’t she cut me, said she’d do far worse if I didn’t do as I was told. I was still so groggy and confused … she got me out of the car and there was another one parked a few feet away, she loosened the rope around my ankles just enough so I could shuffle and told me to get in it and we started driving again.’

‘And you drove back to London?’ Clara frowned. ‘Why did she do that?’

‘To confuse the police, I guess.’

Clara tried to imagine how it must have felt to have been in that car, how terrified he must have been. As if reading her thoughts, Luke said, ‘I was scared witless. It was surreal, waking up like that, I thought it was a joke, a prank, you know? And then she cut me, and I suddenly realized I was in big fucking trouble, that she was completely off her head. The drive back to London, I kept drifting in and out of consciousness as she started talking about my dad, about Emily, but none of it made sense. I realized she was the one who’d been sending me the emails and photos, and the more she talked, the more crazy I realized she was, and the more it dawned on me what deep shit I was in.

‘I still thought I’d be OK, though.’ He laughed bitterly. ‘I mean, I’m tall and fit, you know? I thought she’d take her eye off the ball and I’d escape somehow, I always am all right, aren’t I? I thought I’d get out of this OK in the end. But when we got back to London we pulled up in the car park outside her building, she had the knife, kept prodding me with it ’til I was bleeding all over, she’d gagged me so I couldn’t shout out, and then she made me get out of the car. When she opened the back door to the building and told me to go inside, I thought no fucking way, so I didn’t move.’

‘And then what?’ Clara asked.