‘But how did you recognize me?’ I say, thinking of my polished Facebook profile photo, taken by Anne for the Luna London website. She’d filtered it so much I barely even recognized myself when I first saw it. ‘You hadn’t seen me since I was a kid.’

‘I knew it was you the moment I saw your photo,’ he says, smiling to himself. ‘You had the same kind eyes. Eyes tell you everything you need to know about a person and yours were the loveliest ones I’ve ever seen. They haven’t changed.’

‘Why didn’t you just send me a message?’ I say. ‘Once you’d found me.’

‘I was scared,’ he says, exhaling deeply. ‘I’m not the most social of people. After what happened to me that night, I hid away from the world.’

‘The night of the party?’

‘Yes,’ he says angrily. ‘My father destroyed my life that night.’

My head starts to throb. I try to wriggle free of his arms but this only makes him pull me tighter towards him.

‘Finding you was the best thing that ever happened to me,’ he says, his voice softening. ‘After all that longing, all that searching, I’d finally found you. My Iris.’

He’s not well, I think to myself. I need to use this, convince him to stop.

‘All those pages you were on,’ he says, his voice getting louder suddenly. ‘They were like little chapters all contributing to the bigger story. They told me everything I needed to know about you. Facebook told me who your friends were, what music you liked, the restaurants you rated. It told me where you lived, what hotels you’d checked in to, the name of your boyfriend.’ He pauses when he says this and his face darkens.

‘World building,’ he says, nodding his head. ‘That’s how Geoffrey used to describe the writing process. Creating a world from the things that make up a character. I was able to build a picture of you and your world from the information you’d put out there yourself. It was like magic. Twitter was very much your work and business life. It was there I found out all about Luna London. Wow, that seemed like the perfect place for little Iris to work. All that glitter and sparkle, helping people become the best versions of themselves – you said that yourself in one of your tweets. It was wonderful. Your boss, Anne, seemed perfect for you too. I liked her profile picture – the one where she’s holding up the pot of powder over one eye so she looks like some glamorous pirate. She has kind eyes too. I wanted to poke them out.’

As he speaks, my body goes rigid with fear. All pity flees.