‘What will happen now?’ It was my overriding need. To know what would happen. To plan, and make lists, and be ready. I hadn’t been ready for any of the last few days and I was still scrabbling, trying to find the bottom with my feet.

‘We’ll let him recover. Meanwhile, the CPS will be working on the case. The defence can obviously apply to postpone the trial if he’s still in here.’

‘And Jake?’

He stood up. ‘I can’t talk to you about Jake, Mrs Morris. We’ll need to get statements from you, and your daughter. We have him in custody, I can tell you that.’

That should have been plenty, enough to keep him somewhere safe and away from Mike, at least until we could sort this all out, find out what on earth he’d been thinking. So why did I feel this fear still, this terrible slippery fear that the thing was not over? That the events set in motion on Saturday night were like a Greek tragedy, and would continue to unfurl until everything was destroyed?

‘It was like I didn’t know him,’ I said. ‘Like he – like he wanted to kill us all.’ Jake was like family. I’d practically brought him up, and now he’d tried to kill my husband. And Adam was there looking at me with his steady kind gaze, as if it saw all the way through me. ‘He’s not safe. I mean, he’s not, is he? You saw. Mike’s in danger if he’s free. And my daughter, even. I think he might have tried to . . .’ I swallowed hard, struggling to put it all into words, how a boy I had loved was suddenly an object of terror to me. How I knew I had to, as Mike had done, throw myself between him and Cassie. Just keep him away from my family, until we could sort all this out. If we ever could. ‘He needs help. He can’t be out in the world, hurting people. Right?’

He just nodded. ‘Try to get some rest. You’ll be no use to anyone if you collapse.’