Disinfectant clogs my throat while the police ask me questions. Endless questions.

It is difficult to answer them. Through the haze of medication the then merges with the now. We were taken. Archie was taken. It is all a bit of a blur.

‘When was the last time you saw Marie?’ PC Godley asks.

‘You know when.’ I can’t keep the bitterness out of my voice. ‘I came to the station to tell you she was missing. I knew something was wrong and you dismissed it as a feeling.’

‘It’s estimated that Marie’s overdose took place before you reported it, so even if we had located her it would have been too late.’ He looks ashamed. ‘I am sorry, though.’

‘Thank you.’ I know it isn’t his fault.

‘And where is Carly now?’

This time it is me who feels ashamed. How could Mum have agreed to Dad arranging Carly’s abduction? Knowing that Marie and I were never supposed to be taken is too awful for me to process. No wonder Carly unravelled the way she did.

‘She said she was going away, for a while. It’s all been very traumatic.’

Whatever happens I will protect her. My sister, the way that in the end she protected me. I knew she wouldn’t let me die. George says when he arrived, at much the same time as the police, she was standing outside, balancing a conscious but groggy Archie on her hip, waving and screaming for help. That image is comforting. She could have left me alone and gone underground, but she didn’t. Our family nearly destroyed her and I hope wherever she is, she can be happy.

I hope that she’ll come back.

‘So tell me again, Leah. Why did you go to Norwood?’

‘It all got too much. The letters. The journalists. I thought that if I revisited the place that has never really left me I could begin to put it behind me somehow. I wasn’t thinking straight.’

‘So…’ he consults his notes, ‘you threw yourself down the contamination chute?’

‘Yes. It’s where it ended before. It was unfortunate there was broken glass. It was such a shock to land on it. I don’t know what I’d have done if Carly hadn’t come and found me.’

‘And you think she guessed where you were?’

‘Yes. We’re sisters. We have a special bond.’

‘And you say she brought Archie along because she was babysitting?’

‘Yes. She’d never have left him alone. She loves him.’ That much, at least, is true.

Thankfully, Archie doesn’t remember anything that happened. Once I’d been taken to the hospital George had called Tash. She’d picked up Archie and had taken him home while I was operated on. The glass had missed my liver by millimetres. I am lucky, I was told.

‘Right.’ PC Godley puts away his pen. ‘I suppose we’ll leave it at that then. The owners of the land could prosecute you for trespassing but it’s not something we’ll encourage them to do. Hopefully now the anniversary has been and gone we’ll hear no more from you.’