I feel light-headed as I listen to her. I went crazy? No, Connor, you tried to make me think I was.

‘But then he said something,’ says Lottie, shuffling in closer. ‘And it made me go cold. He was about to leave and I asked him what had made you go crazy, what had happened. I had to ask. You were such a steady, calm person, Nessa. It didn’t make any sense. And then … then he told me.’

‘What did he tell you?’

‘He said that you’d got really drunk one night at a club and that when you got back to the flat you’d jumped on him,’ she says, clutching my hand in hers. ‘He said that the next day you accused him of forcing himself on to you. He said you were mentally ill and needed help.’

My eyes brim with tears as I listen to her, remembering that night and the horrors that followed. Remembering his mother jumping to his defence, telling me that I was harming her son, remembering those pills, the blood, my life slowly falling apart.

‘He’s lying,’ I say, my voice barely audible. ‘I swear to you, Lottie.’

‘I know,’ she says, and with those words I feel my whole body go limp. She believes me. My best friend.

‘How did you know I was at Holly Maze House?’ I say, remembering the relief I felt when I saw her running out of the maze.

‘We were waiting outside the cafe,’ she says. ‘Connor had just told me all that bullshit and I didn’t know what to think. Then we saw you. Connor got up straight away and ran after you, but I was in shock for a minute. Next thing, this big black Range Rover comes out of nowhere. A man in a balaclava jumped out of it and grabbed you from behind. I was yelling at Connor to do something, but he was just standing there, frozen to the spot. It all happened in seconds. Once I caught up, the man had bundled you into the car and driven off. I told Connor to ring the police, but he just shoved past me, said he wanted nothing to do with it, and ran off. Then this woman came over to me, she’d taken a photo of the licence plate. We called the police and … well, you know the rest.’

I think of Gabriel and his sad eyes, the way he lit up when he thought there was a chance we could be together. I think of those letters, the fact that he liked my sadness because it made him feel less bad about his own. He could have had a happy life, if only he’d been allowed. But then I think about my mother. About my father. How we all have to overcome our childhoods somehow.

‘Right, who fancies a takeaway?’