Georgia let herself out of her house, her Nike sun visor keeping both the evening sun and her long ponytail out of her eyes. Her earphones were plugged firmly into her ears, and Bruno Mars was being delivered right into her brain via her iPhone. She set off at a slow jog towards the park, almost immediately feeling short of breath – it was the first time she had been out running for days now. But she was feeling so guilty about the amount of stress-induced Cokes and sweets she’d been shovelling into herself recently that she was forcing herself to try and jog some of it off.

Yesterday she hadn’t eaten all day, and had been so starving by the evening that she had consumed a Big Mac and large fries followed by a Chinese takeaway and half a tub of Häagen-Dazs with her folks two hours later when she got home. And her nails were bitten to the quick. Her life may be going down the toilet, she thought, but she was determined not to let her arse get huge on top of everything else. She needed to be in control of something.

She ran through the main gate of the park, already feeling slightly better. It was a beautiful evening, cooling down after a hot day, a welcome breeze on her face. Deer lay in indolent groups under the trees, and the sweet scent of cut grass filled her nostrils. She took the path around the edge of the park to avoid the deer, which scared her – you were always hearing stories about how furious stags chased people round and round trees, sometimes for hours, sometimes killing them. A big kid on one of those small bikes rode past her and she veered to the side of the path to avoid him. But he suddenly slewed his bike sideways and blocked her path.

‘What the fuck?’ she said, yanking one of her earbuds out so that Bruno was in mono. The kid was her age, but she didn’t recognize him. He was a right little chav – low-slung jeans, too-large baseball cap, big diamond stud in his ear. He and Jerome obviously had the same fashion advisor, she thought with a shudder. She ran around him, but he got back on his bike, pedalled after her and did the same thing. This time, he walked up close to her.

‘You have to come with me,’ he said.

A worm of fear crept into Georgia’s belly. ‘What do you mean? I don’t have to do anything you tell me to.’ She was aware that she was using her poshest voice. She sounded like her mum hectoring the traffic warden who put a ticket on the windscreen of the Discovery when she’d only stopped for five minutes to go to the Post Office.

‘Yeah right. You won’t be saying that when Jerome has finished with you.’