She shook her head. ‘I knew him. I’d been drinking – not enough to pass out, but some. I tried to talk to a few friends but he was popular, and they didn’t believe me. But then a few weeks later he did it to another girl. I felt so guilty. If only I’d come forward, maybe he’d have been arrested and none of that would have happened.’

I could see where she was going with this, but followed to its conclusion it meant Mike was dangerous. That if we didn’t deal with this now, my husband might attack someone else. And that was ludicrous. Mike was a good man. I had married a good man – I had been so very careful to.

She went on, ‘If you could bring yourself to, you could just say that victims – I mean, alleged victims – should come forward. That’s all. They aren’t allowed to discuss any details anyway before the trial.’

For a moment, I considered it – clawing back control, being Ali Morris the Chair, the media personality, the campaigner – but then I was standing up, so quickly I spilled coffee on to my skirt. Images were flickering through my head like a crazed magic-lantern show. Mike, in that tracksuit in a dingy little room, the fear in his voice as he’d begged for my help. Karen in the kitchen, shaking, the blood running down her thigh. Karen. Mike. The two of them having sex in our house. But then there was Cassie, and Benji, crying for his dad. I knew what I had to do. I had to protect them, at all costs.

‘I can’t. He’s my husband. I . . . I’m not going to say anything publicly at all.’

Vix stood up too. I saw her eyes harden. ‘In that case, Ali, I’m afraid we have no choice but to ask you to stand down as Chair. The board are in agreement – we had a conference call earlier. I’ll draft a statement saying you’re out.’

Benji