Police cars and media vans filled the Lowfield driveway. An officer spotted Mary’s car, which was stuck halfway along, and cleared the way through to the G4S entrance, which was beside the steps to the main door. To the left of the steps was a group of women, and a few skinny men, yelling, ‘Women hold up half the sky, Women hold up half the sky.’ Mary had never heard that expression before and she wondered why her arms weren’t better toned if it was so. The women’s banners read: Cuck off; Infidelity is not an excuse for murder; Domestic Violence IS about gender; and Stop the slaughter.

On the other side of the entrance were the men – about forty of them – holding placards:

Men need protection from abusive wives; 90% of suicides are men and You want gender equality? Good, I don’t want to pay, I don’t want to open doors, I don’t want to go to war, I don’t want to die to save you.

Mary should have realised sooner, she supposed, but Dr Liam Macdowall – his face, his words, his experience – was the perfect eye for a long brewing storm.

‘Men against violence.’ One man echoed the words he held. He, like most of the men, wore a black t-shirt with the letter C printed on it in bright red – a nod to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. At the front, also wearing scarlet letters, were Derek and Holly.

And there he was, coming through the revolving glass door, stopping on the top step, HMP Lowfield’s loud lettering above. The cameras rolled, and Liam Macdowall declared over the mic: ‘The first step towards any positive change is to admit you have a problem. My name is Liam Macdowall and I am a pathetic excuse for a man. I’m so pathetic my wife cuckolded me. I am a cuck.’ Liam took a t-shirt from Derek and put it over the tight designer one he had on. It looked great. ‘The second step is to own it and move on. I wear this C proudly, it is no longer a symbol of my past weaknesses, but an affirmation of my courage.’

The men chanted, ‘Courage. Courage. Courage.’ The women and vegetarian men booed. Holly burst into tears, hacked her way through the crowd, ran up the stairs and hugged her father. He cried too. Their smiles seemed real when they turned to face the cameras, and faded when Mary barged through to drag them away.

‘Are you crazy, Liam? Hide your face, Holly. Quick, follow me.’

The three of them shuffled off towards the car to shouts about holding up skies, and counter-shouts about being human beings too, which sounded better when the Elephant Man said it.

The two tribes followed them as Mary crawled along the drive. And as they crawled, the synchronised chanting turned into a vicious shouting match.