They wander like this for a while, Maud darting here and there, Lizzie sticking to the paths, head down. Maud needs to do more darting. She is fat and needs exercise. The average Jack Russell should weigh between thirteen and seventeen pounds and needs four to six hundred calories a day. Maud gets that much in custard creams alone, given by Tess with a ‘Who’s a pretty poppet, then?’

Lizzie tries to ‘lose herself in nature’, like Tess told her to, but all she hears is violence. The wind whips and wails, the seagulls screech and scream.

She walks to the bench, dedicated to someone she’ll never know, so it doesn’t matter, but she polishes the bronze plaque with her sleeve anyway, as if asking permission before sitting down. Her word-search book is in her pocket, her pencil in her hair. The wind calms as her fingers run up and down the rows that hide the world’s largest cities. Lizzie finds Shanghai straight away then looks for Jakarta, her heart slowing with each ‘a’. There is a moment of panic when she can’t find Tokyo, but she reminds herself it’s in there somewhere. All the answers are there: she doesn’t have to think. Doesn’t have to work anything out. All she has to do is follow the vowels and the words will appear.

She is distracted by Maud’s strangled bark. Shoving the word-search book back into her pocket, Lizzie chases after her, scrabbling for the sausages she keeps in the pocket of her jeans. She finally catches up with Maud, who is dancing round a lanky wolfhound.

‘Maud! Lizzie pants, out of breath from running. She tries to get hold of the dog, but Maud has no intention of going back on the lead. She swerves between Lizzie’s legs, barking and squirming.

‘It’s fine,’ the owner says. ‘Wolfie’s friendly, aren’t you, mate? He wouldn’t hurt a fly.’ He bends and strokes his dog’s ears. Wolfie wags his shabby tail and sniffs at the air. ‘What’s your dog called?’ the man asks Lizzie, straightening up.

He’s tall, Lizzie thinks irrelevantly. ‘She’s not mine,’ she says quickly, ‘but her name is Maud.’

Maud yaps in response, as if introducing herself. She’s clever, Lizzie thinks suddenly.

‘Hi, Maud. Nice to meet you,’ Wolfie’s owner says, then, ‘I’m Luke.’

He looks at Lizzie, waiting for her to offer something back, but she doesn’t. What will come after her name? A suggestion they walk together? A chat? Questions. Lizzie can’t. She just can’t. There is a moment of uneasy silence. Wolfie breaks it by sniffing Maud’s bum and Lizzie finally gets a finger under her collar and clips her back on the lead.

‘Wolfhounds make terrible guard dogs,’ Lizzie says awkwardly, nodding at Wolfie. ‘They’re not at all suspicious of strangers.’