‘She told me Emily was inside. That my sister was waiting for me in there. It was all so crazy, but in my weird, drugged-up state I kind of thought it might be true.’ He shook his head as he remembered. ‘And I was still so certain that I’d be able to knock her out or something, so I thought, OK, I’ll go along with it, see if she really does know anything about Emily. I’d wondered for twenty years what had happened to her and here was this nutter saying she knew something. I thought I’d still be able to get out later, she was only one skinny woman, after all. I don’t know, I was too cocky, too curious.’

‘So you went in?’

He nodded. ‘My legs were still loosely bound so I couldn’t kick but I could shuffle, so, yeah, I walked in.’ He ran his hand over his face as he remembered. ‘Fucking idiot that I am.’

Luke told her how Hannah had pushed him into a pitch-black room, how he’d fallen to the floor and she’d locked the door. As he reached this part of his story he had to choke back his tears. ‘She didn’t come back for two days. I just had to lie there, waiting. Pissing myself, not eating or drinking.’ Angrily he swiped his tears away, his face burning at the memory. ‘She barely gave me any food or drink, I was always tied up, so I couldn’t even go to the toilet without her help.’

‘Oh, Luke.’

‘I still dream about it,’ he said. ‘I dream about it all the time. Waking up in that car, the knife, that fucking room. I have flashbacks every day.’ His voice broke and he began to cry. ‘I don’t think it’ll stop. I don’t think it’ll ever stop, Clara.’

She’d put her arms around him then and they’d stood for a long time, her holding him as he cried, the feel and smell and touch of him so familiar she had to fight hard not to give in to the sudden longing she felt.

‘You could have died,’ Luke said. ‘She took my keys. I didn’t know she was going to go to the flat and look for those pictures of Emily. I don’t even know how she knew they were there.’

‘What did she want with them?’ Clara asked.