Abi pulled her hood up and gathered her arms around her, cursing the thin material of the sports top. If she’d been thinking clearly, she’d have grabbed her coat as well, but the perpetual itch of withdrawal didn’t leave much space for clear thinking, and she’d been anxious to get out of her brother’s house so she could give him and his date some space. He had said more than once that she didn’t have to go out, of course not, but she had seen it in his face clearly enough: few things put a girl off faster than your junkie sister sleeping on the sofa.

She wandered to the end of their road and stood for a moment, considering which way to go. Her lower back ached faintly. She was too old for sofa-surfing, but she’d lost her third job in a row and had little choice about that. It was too cold for wandering the streets too, but she didn’t have enough money to do anything else. Abi chose to go right, and started walking again.

It was the run-down end of town, where most of the shop fronts were either boarded up or displaying posters for betting shops, and one or two of the street lamps were dead. There was a pub called The Joiners on the corner, and Abi looked longingly towards its dimpled windows, but the thought of standing in there just for the warmth was humiliating; the thought of hoping someone would buy her a drink, even more so. She hadn’t had the heart to tell David that she didn’t have the money to ‘amuse herself’ for the evening and that his cosy date would be condemning her to a night of slightly cold boredom.

Abi walked on past the pub, pretending that she didn’t have an end destination in mind. She turned another corner, heading down an even seedier road, wondering already if anyone would be there. She could see the park at the end of the street, obscured by a chicken-wire fence and an ugly steel gate. There were the swings and the rusting roundabout, the looming shadow of the slide, but she couldn’t make out any figures. Sometimes, she reminded herself, when it was cold, they would sit underneath the slide and pass out their goodies.

She was so intent on reaching the park, Abi almost missed the figure coming towards her, a tall stocky man also wearing a hood, his face in shadow. Despite the itch, she felt abruptly afraid, and she kept her head down, wishing she had been paying more attention, wishing that she had thought to cross the road. As he came closer, she caught a whiff of something rotten and feral, and for the briefest second she was sure he was going to shout at her, or grab her – he smelled mad, inhuman.