‘Ah, but I know you, don’t I?’ He’s shouting now. ‘I know everything about you. I know how precious this new life is, how hard you’ve worked to build it, how desperate you are to keep it intact, preserve its integrity, and yet how choked with guilt, how suffocated you feel for leaving others behind – others whom, without us, you would never see, never hear of again, and never know were being kept as safe as they could be.’

‘That’s the fucking point, isn’t it!’ I shout back at him. ‘It turns out Kayleigh was never safe, and now the whole world is going to 174find out what you lot did to her in the name of the national interest.’

I flinch as he grabs my wrist, bending and squeezing my arm so unnaturally that I think it might snap.

‘Oh, do be careful, Marie,’ he says, inching my arm further and further away from its rightful position. ‘You do want to see her again, don’t you? Lest we make you an accomplice too. After all, it wasn’t just Miss Baines who brought others in – you were always by her side, weren’t you? What was it you said? Ah yes … “she’s my best friend, we’ve got each other’s backs, haven’t we?” And it’s Katie now, isn’t it? Yes, that’s right, I know exactly who, what and where she is…’

I pant as the pressure builds in my elbow, my other hand slipping and sliding against the wall behind me, bravado suffocated by pain, pain and more pain.

‘This can never happen again,’ he says, black, empty eyes bearing down on me. ‘Do you understand? Never again can we tolerate a display as unhinged as this. Never.’

I feel drool trickle from the corner of my mouth as I gasp, agony radiating from my elbow.

‘You will get to the bottom of the leak in the police, do you hear? And you will communicate by approved channels only.’

I cry out, bent double now – anything to minimise how far he can move my arm. He laughs, before spitting on to the floor.

‘You are a tiny piece of this, Marie. Tiny – a speck, if you will. We could scrub you out without trace, like wiping dirt off a lens, like flicking lint off a sleeve, except we haven’t, have we? You need us far more than we need you, far, far more.’

I crumple on to the floor as he releases my arm, which is throbbing so hard I can practically hear it.

‘You will find the source,’ he hisses, looming over me. ‘And your accounts are suspended until you do. Everything you depend on to live? You won’t get access to any of it until you’ve covered up this mess.’175