His eyes are bloodshot as though he’s been crying, there’s a sheen of sweat on his forehead and his hair is dirty, slicked back with grease or hair product – I can’t tell which. He’s wearing a tatty jumper, pulled over his hands. It feels as though I haven’t seen him for years and I’m shocked anew by how broken he looks.

‘Mum?’ he says again and his strong, handsome face seems to collapse in on itself. ‘Say something, Mum.’

‘I had another blackout.’ It’s all I can manage before I collapse into his arms.

He pulls me into him and I press my face to his chest, comforted by the familiar but musky scent of his skin through his T-shirt.

‘Oh my God, another one?’ he says. ‘What happened? Tell me everything you can remember.’

‘And then they walked me to a taxi rank and I came home,’ I finish. ‘And let myself in.’

I’m on the sofa and there is a cup of tea on the table beside me. Steam no longer rises from the surface of the mug. I haven’t had more than two or three sips since we sat down.

‘That’s it?’ Jake asks. ‘That’s all you can remember? Coming round in the toilets?’

‘Jake, I …’

I want to tell him how terrified I was. How I thought I’d woken up in a coffin or been locked in a box. But I can’t tell him how disorientating, how truly, truly frightening it is not to know where you are or even who you are, because I don’t want to scare him. I don’t want him to worry about me. He’s falling apart as it is. ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘That’s all I can remember.’

My handbag is tucked between me and the arm of the sofa. I haven’t told Jake about the knife. How can I when I don’t know what it means? It looks like one of mine, one of the knives we use for steak, but there must be hundreds or thousands of people who own one. I bought it from B&M in the Broadwalk shopping centre, not somewhere fancy.

There are only two possibilities: either someone used the knife on me or I used it on them. But I’m not bleeding. There was blood on my fingertips but I’m not hurt. I surreptitiously checked myself for injuries while I was sitting in the back of the cab.

Someone else’s blood then.

‘Mum?’ Jake says. ‘Aren’t you going to answer that?’

‘Sorry?’

‘Your phone.’ He points at my bag. ‘It’s ringing.’

I tilt the bag towards me, hiding the contents from Jake who’s sitting in the armchair across the room, as I unzip it and carefully take out my phone.

It’s Mark.