‘If you went to the gym you could tighten all this,’ he said, seeing fit to drop behind me and play bongos on my buttocks. ‘You’d have more stamina. You’d be burning off fat, instead of, you know, a load of cakes.’

‘You’re right,’ I puffed. ‘And do you know what, I’m going to get on the treadmill when I get back to my hotel. I’ll use your body as my motivation.’

He grinned widely. ‘Thanks!’

We walked through the woods to where the trees thinned out but the ground was all sand and shards of bark. I kept losing my footing and he raced on ahead. I didn’t want us too out in the open.

‘Stop,’ I puffed. ‘Wait for me.’

‘Come on, slow coach. I can see the sea, it’s down there.’

‘Where?’ I said, coming up behind him.

‘Down there, look,’ he said, stopping and pointing down the slope. ‘See?’

I withdrew the knife from my bag and plunged it into the back of his neck and he gargled and heaved. I pulled it out, then stuck it back in to sever his vocal cords and into his back again and again and again. It was like being back at school, being with my parents, being with Craig: normality. Safety. Not thrilling, just familiar. This is what I know. This is what I do.

This is what Home is.

I stabbed him seven times till he fell forward onto his knees. I was about to push him down when he scrabbled up and stumbled into the brush, faster than I could run.

‘Fuck!’ I cried out, dashing after him.

He stumbled and grabbed out for something to keep him upright. His bloody fingerprints on every tree. He wouldn’t get far – his legs kept buckling. I slowed. He grabbed out for fallen branches, handfuls of sand and dry leaves, and he kept turning to find me, gaining on him. There were people on the beach below, families splashing. If one of them saw…

Saw me coming at him again. Saw him stumbling. Saw me pushing him forwards, pinning him down and plunging the knife into him eight more times. Making certain that this time he wouldn’t get back up again.

‘That’s the thing… about fat girls, Conan,’ I puffed, dodging a spurt of aortic blood, ‘you can’t live with ’em, and you can’t… fight ’em off.’

Soon all the struggle left him and he stopped, face down in the dirt. I turned him over, feeling a flicker of a pulse, sand stuck to his bloodied face, eyes fluttering. I couldn’t lie on top of him – there was too much blood – so I lay down beside and watched that last little light go out. Lying like a lover on the sand, waiting for her paramour to bring her to ecstasy.

I prepared myself for the rippling; flames igniting my rocket to the stars.