It seems a silly thing to say, looking back. Seems a silly picture to hold in my memory. But I’m there, on the back step of the big old house on the outskirts of Gilsland, one hand on the door, one foot soaking wet: a bag over one arm and my hair tied up in a scarf. John behind me in his pyjama trousers, trying not to show that he’s suffering; making sure I know that this is a pain for him, but he’s got no bloody choice because that’s what husbands do.

I suppose I remember the door bursting open but I can’t picture it properly. There was just a sudden rush of movement and a sensation that the darkness had changed shape and then the door was smacking into my face like a fist and I was pinwheeling back down the stairs and my head was smacking into John’s teeth and then we were both on our arses and seeing stars and staring up at the star-speckled blackness, fighting for breath, fear gripping every bloody bit of me.

And then there was somebody above me, a boot either side of my head. I think I noticed dark eyes. Maybe there was a whiff of some nasty-smelling cigar; perhaps the gleam of a funny green wristwatch.

But all I truly saw was the glint of the shovel, its blade angled downwards, pointing at my throat like I was glaring up at the guillotine.

CORDELIA

It was one of the old trains. It had been tarted up around the edges and given a lick of paint but it still sounded as though it was in pain and the windows were either locked open or welded shut. The fabric on the seats was a horrible mixture of rough fabric and old imitation leather and the chap who clipped my ticket had the look of somebody who’d been sentenced to do the job as a punishment for some hideous crime. There had been half a dozen other people in my compartment when we hissed and shuffled out of London in the rain-stippled darkness but by Peterborough I was alone.