‘Like you said, I haven’t been myself. I think this has really taken it out of me and I don’t like the way it made me behave. You are too important to me and I just need to take a breath, you know?’

‘Just take your leave. See how you feel after that,’ Imogen said.

‘This has been coming for a long time, I think.’

‘Are you breaking up with me?’

‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘Unless that’s what you want.’

‘It’s not what I want.’

‘This way, we don’t need to creep around. We can just be together.’

‘I don’t understand. Where has this come from?’ she asked.

He couldn’t tell her the truth and although this would change everything between them, he believed it could make them better. He couldn’t keep walking into dangerous situations with her, never knowing when he was going to zone out or lose control. Never knowing who he was going to bump into.

He felt as though he was partially responsible for what happened to him, purely because he had antagonised Reece Corrigan. What if, instead of retaliating against Adrian, he had retaliated against Imogen? No. Adrian could live with a lot of things, but losing Imogen wouldn’t be one of them. He had learned the hard way that you couldn’t take love for granted, that it could be ripped from you at any moment.

‘I love you, Imogen. That’s all that matters. I just need a break from all this. With every case I seem to lose myself more and more. If I don’t take control now, I don’t know where I will end up.’

‘What will you do?’

‘I don’t want you to worry about that. I just wanted to tell you,’ he said, noticing that she didn’t try to talk him out of it.

He saw tears gathering in Imogen’s eyes. He knew it was a lot, what he was asking. He was changing her life as much as he was his, but he honestly didn’t know what else to do. This was the only way to save himself, to save them. He kissed her again. She sniffled and pulled him in close for an embrace. For the first time in weeks they were really together, and he was thinking about her and not himself.

Adrian was going to be as honest as possible with Imogen from now on. He was going to put his attack behind him and get better. If that proved too difficult then there was a box hidden in the back of the cupboard under his stairs. The box was full of photocopied police files relating to Reece Corrigan spanning several years. His clothes from that night were in there, too, and any other information that might be useful should he decide to find the man who raped him.