On the desk, there’s a small leather stationery holder, with paper and envelopes with the name of the hotel and a logo stamped on them. Maybe this place isn’t so bad. Maybe it was grand, once. I pull out the deep drawer beneath the desk and a small plink of excitement runs over my arms like goose bumps. A kettle, lots of tea and coffee – hot chocolate … I rummage further in the basket next to the cups and saucers … and find some biscuits. I never thought I’d be so excited for some home comforts, as basic as they might be. I give the kettle a little shake, to make sure there is some water in it – and thankfully there is, as I don’t want to disturb Carrie right now – then I flick it on, and sit down in the chair to wait for it to boil.

There’s a large lamp on the desk, one of those heavy-based ones with an elaborate shade. It’s a bit out of place in the stark room, but I assume it harks back to a time when there might’ve been a few fancier things in here. Curtains, maybe. And less hazardous bedspreads. I pull the little gold chain and the room is basked in an amber glow. Relaxing, at last, I tip a hot chocolate sachet into a cup, and fill it with water. Just the smell of it makes me want to cry. I can’t say that my mum ever brought me hot chocolate in bed as a child. I’m pretty sure I had to make it myself – but there is something comforting about it all the same. I associate it with reading with my glow-worm lamp and imagining myself in another place. I might’ve lived in a fancy old mansion, but it was a lonely place with just me, the neglected only child, and my parents, and I longed to go to a boarding school, like Mallory Towers in the books I loved to read. I wanted to be around other girls. I wanted to be part of something.