It is only as the door is closing, only as the absence of Polly and the police officers creep through the room, stripping with it the shiny veneer that she and Dominic have together conjured, does Simone realise that instead of relief, she feels a sudden, searing loss. At the sound of the door, Dominic has come out of his room and is standing next to her. He has done his part, as she has done hers. But all at once she realises what in their fear they both have missed: an opportunity for escape.

Simone feels dizzy. She raises her arms into the air next to her, and Dominic takes her hand, but the realisation continues to disorientate, because it is only in this moment, this very moment, that she understands the truth of it, the obvious, complicated truth: that escape is what she longs for. Until now, she has not even seen how trapped she is. They are out of the estate, they have broken through the grey, towering walls, and she had been imagining this to be freedom; but amongst the free she feels more trapped than ever. It hits her now with the full weight of epiphany.

Has she missed it?

Most days, Terry would have been home with them. But just then, there had been a chance, there had been a rare chance. Terry was out, and she had both the kids, and still marks on her neck, and surely if she’d told Polly or the police officers the other things that Terry does, they would have done something. An overwhelming surge of panic shoots through Simone’s chest at the loss of it – what if this was her only chance? What if she waits for things to improve with Terry and they never do? What if things get worse? What if she has realised two seconds too late that they need to get away?

Listening for a moment, she can still hear footsteps on the stairs. Perhaps it is not too late after all. Perhaps if she calls Polly back…

Without thinking further, Simone reaches for the door handle, but she pauses for just a split second to look to Dominic who is standing stock-still next to her. She should not have done this. When she looks into Dominic’s eyes, she sees clearly the same panic that is pushing at her own lungs and squeezing hard against her throat, and it makes her waver. “It’s a chance,” she tells Dominic, urgently. But he shakes his head. He is terrified. And of course he would be. Chances are risky. By their very nature, they are a gamble, and she hasn’t even planned it properly. She isn’t even sure if Polly could protect them. She doesn’t even know if, should she make it to Polly, she would be able to snitch on the man she has loved.

There is a part of her that loves him still.

That’s the joke of it all. She needs him. She depends on him. She wants him, even now.