I pulled my phone from my pocket, took a deep breath. Forced myself to keep walking. Before I even reached the crumpled wreck of a body curled in the hedgerow, I’d dialled 999. Asked for help. Police, yes. Ambulance, yes. Was the person breathing? I didn’t know, I wasn’t close enough, but I had to be now. I had to get close. I saw a face, blue, a gaping neck wound. Fibrous tissue, muscle and cartilage all on display. An arm that lay at a strange angle. Dried blood. Fresh blood.

Surely this figure before me was dead. Surely no one could survive such butchery.

‘It’s a woman. A girl,’ I blurted down the phone.

‘Is she breathing?’ The voice on the other end of the line was the calm to my panic.

‘I don’t think so.’

I got down on my knees, repulsed by the sight in front of me but knowing I at least had to check. I had to do what I could. I bent my head down over her body, my ear to her mouth – senses primed to pick up even the slightest whisper of breath. I took her poor, cool wrist in my hand – tried to feel for a pulse. I was shaking. Trying to push away the memories of another time. Other girls. Other men. Other children. Cold and grey and mutilated. This was why I stayed away. The thumping of my heart drowned out all noise, even the yelping of the dog at my feet.

But there it was. The faintest pulse. Thready. Slow. The softest exhalation. Short. Shallow.

‘She’s alive,’ I said to the operator. ‘But only just. Be quick.’

I untied my jacket, placed it on her – as useless as it probably was. Even though it was already hot, she was so cold. The bleeding from her neck wound had been profuse but it had slowed now. I lifted the jacket, moved it and pressed against the wound, almost afraid that I’d press too hard, that my hand would slip inside it.

‘Help’s on the way,’ I said, for my own benefit as much as for that of the unknown woman in front of me. ‘If you can hang on, help is on the way. I’m Elizabeth and I’m not going to leave you. I’m going to be here until the paramedics arrive. So if you could do me a favour and just hang on, that would be great, lovey. It really would.’

I took her hand in mine. Could barely countenance how it could feel so cold and still have life in it.

‘You’re not alone,’ I told her, trying to reassure her.