Claire was exhausted. Everything around her seemed unreal. She was used to the quiet campsite, talking to the horses, walking Blue around the meadows and down the lanes. But now there was only the noise of engines and of people, so many people all around her, chattering and moving and laughing, while she floated in a dreamlike bubble of isolation.

She’d walked, then caught a bus from the nearest village into Winchester, and from there she’d got the train up to Liverpool. There she boarded the ferry for Dublin. She had a passport, she’d had one for a year or so, since Josh had said he might take her away to Spain or somewhere like that on a trip when they were wed, so she’d better be prepared. It hurt her to even think about that now.

When she arrived in Ireland she checked into a B & B near the docks because it was late, and then she tried to sleep. But she couldn’t. Nightmare images of the happenings in the church kept swirling around her brain. Blue, thrown dead into Polly James’s grave. And the Cleavers, grunting as they took it in turns to use her, hurting her, bruising her, laughing all the while about popping her cherry and saying she was good, she was fresh meat. She had to put a chair against the locked door to even lie down on the bed and rest. Sleep was out of the question, she was too afraid for that. They might come after her again, and Shauna would be with them, cruel Shauna who had left her there for them to have their fun with, like she was nothing.

Claire felt like she would never sleep again.

On the strength of that thousand-quid win in the ring, Shauna encouraged Josh to splash out on a three-star hotel instead of a B & B. She looked around the place with interested eyes. It was OK, she thought. Passable. But the windows were painted shut and it was stifling hot overnight.

Still, Shauna was determined to make the best of this. It was a blow, Josh’s determination to shove off to Ireland in search of Claire Milo – fat chance he had of finding her! – but he was a man, and she was used to manipulating men. Already they were distancing themselves from the campsite, and all she had to do was keep going, keep him occupied, and one of these days he was going to forget he had ever known the Milo bitch. She was coming to realize that getting rid of Claire was only half the battle; the other half was getting her out of Josh’s head.