‘I don’t understand,’ Jemima says after a moment. Shadow falls over my face as she moves in front of me. ‘Was that you, Marie? Who were you talking to?’

‘You know it was,’ barks Olivia from behind her. ‘You’ve always known, haven’t you, Jemima?’

I shiver, suddenly cold in the shade. The ice water is back, a wash of fear as I stumble backward, crumpling into the chair behind me. And suddenly here’s Olivia, standing at my elbow in a cloud of perfume, silk sleeves brushing at my cheek.266

‘What … what do you mean?’ Jemima stammers, reaching behind her to brace herself against Olivia’s desk. ‘I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about … Perseus? Medusa? What is this?’

‘What was it you said – “hang on, let me be absolutely sure”?’ Olivia’s bracelets chink against my arm; cold, rigid steel. ‘We’d had hundreds of applicants – with degrees, languages, apprenticeships. You name it, they’d had it. But then along you came, didn’t you, Jemima? Our fast-rising management star, with a … ah yes, that was it, an “out-of-the box suggestion”, you called it. Someone different, you said. Grass-roots experience, work ethic second to none. Also recommended by a government contact of yours that we really needed to keep sweet. I remember it, clear as day…’

I stop mid-breath, gripping the arms of my chair, mind barrelling backward. Suddenly it’s 2.00 am, pitch-dark outside, neon light inside, cans of cold Red Bull spilling out of my arms in to a cold, tinny supermarket trolley. The towers, the falling people, the hijacked planes. And Jemima. That’s where I met her. I know it, clearer than I know my real name. That’s where I met her.

‘Help me, Dom,’ Jemima gasps, eyes darting between us, huge and dark. ‘What is that audio? What is all this?’

‘She’s Parish’s daughter,’ Dominic says, voice floating into the supermarket in my head, future and past colliding under the strip lights. ‘Marie – she’s the missing link in the chain. Baby Girl A … she’s her sister, Jonas. Her baby sister. She went into witness protection after the first trial and once she got into the media, it was back-hander after back-hander, every time, a threat to blow her papers. She didn’t know her sister had been abused, until now. Until we showed her…’

There’s something in his tone I’ve heard somewhere before – it was with Beata, coaxing out her story, every last little drop, no matter how harsh.

‘And you know that too, don’t you, Jemima?’

I screw my eyes shut as Olivia’s voice chimes into the overnight aisles, strip lights flickering on and off as Jemima frowns down at 267me. Can I borrow your trolley, she’d asked. Please? We’ve got a newsroom to keep going all night, she’d said. Hadn’t she?

‘You know, because you helped plant her here, didn’t you?’