He doesn’t say anything and doesn’t move so I assume that’s the green light for throw number two. Reel back and lunge forward – the glass cracks, but doesn’t shatter.

‘Shit me,’ I say. ‘Someone’s gonna hear.’ Then I get an idea. I peel my shirt off my body, damp with sweat (I’ve got a sports bra on underneath) and wrap it tightly round my fist, holding the rock.

‘Mona! Mona Mona Mona, no –’

Too late. Punch. My whole arm screams and my brain lights up red, but the glass shatters. I wail, at first worried the sound is an alarm.

I look down and see blood.

‘Ah …’ I drop to the ground in an attempt to escape myself, to try and crawl away from my own arm. I can’t even look at it. I think I might be sick.

In my peripheral vision I sense Ellis coming down to help me but everything is going black. ‘Is it the pain?’

‘The … blood,’ I manage.

I cringe, unwrapping the shirt from what I assume will be a mangled knot of flesh.

‘It’s not bad,’ he says.

‘I’m sorry I shouted at you,’ I say, and my eyes are prickling with tears. ‘I’m sorry.’ That’s not me, I want to say. It’s her. It’s her. It’s her. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Relax,’ he says.

I listen for an alarm and nothing comes. Maybe it was a big deal when Booker caught us on the station cameras but now we have nothing left to lose. We need to get into this office and it was the only way.

Ellis helps me to my feet. There’s no time to linger. I use the shirt to clear out all of the shards still clinging on to the sill, and mange to pull myself up and over the wall, through the window, into the office.

I gesture to Ellis to come inside but he shakes his head firmly and takes one step back. I shrug.

Now I see the radio in its full glory but I still don’t completely understand what I’m looking at. I fiddle with a couple of the knobs and nothing happens.

My attention turns to her desk.

‘Mona, please hurry,’ Ellis hisses through the broken window. I don’t listen.

I open one of the drawers – a photo. Mary Anne, Archie. And Roxy.

She’s in the middle, beaming wide, sunglasses covering her eyes, but it’s her. They’ve all got their arms round each other.

Further digging and – and there’s a car key. A ring of keys with one unattached. And it looks old. Mary Anne didn’t have a noticeably old car, I didn’t think – so what is this the key to? I gesture Ellis over to the broken window and show him the photo first. ‘Have you ever seen this?’

His eyes grow wide. ‘N-no. No, definitely not.’