Roisin feels her spirits rising. God, she’d give anything for a change of scenery. A walk – a chance to sit on a swing for a while and think about nothing, and everything, and him.

‘Keep your phone on you, and don’t talk to any dickheads, which won’t be easy considering the neighbourhood – back for nine, yeah? I’ve got a tenner somewhere, get yourself some chips or whatever. Bring me back some Marlboro Red – I won’t be seeing my guy off the boats for another week. And if you get in trouble, you tell everybody you sneaked out and it wasn’t my fault, yeah? We can do some more crystal gift bags later, if you like. You seemed to enjoy that. I know it’s been hard, but I’ve enjoyed this time together, Ro. You’re good company sometimes. Mind like a bloody rocket and too pretty to be let out alone, but I know from experience, you can’t keep a nightingale in a cage. Go on, and for Christ’s sake take your daddy’s blade.’

Roisin leaps up and crosses, half dancing, to her auntie. She wraps her arms around her, kisses her hair, squeezes her as if she were a teddy bear, breathes in incense and perfume and smoke.

‘Oh go on,’ says Eva-Jayne, pushing her away with a smile.

Roisin rushes to the tiny spare room, pulling clothes from her animal-print suitcase and holding up tops, jeans, cardigans and hoodies for inspection. She feels like she’s getting ready for a wedding. She fishes out her iPod from the mess of dirty laundry at the side of the bed, and slips in her little earphones. Feels genuinely giddy with the excitement of actually leaving the damn flat. Shuffles through songs that make her move her hips. Backcombs her hair at the little white dressing table. Spritzes herself with perfume. Tries on different combinations of shoes, jeans, skirts, jackets – bounces through Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Shakira, Mary J. Blige – grins at herself in the mirror as she brushes glitter onto her cheeks. Half an hour goes by. An hour. She’s enjoying the getting ready so much that she half thinks about not even leaving. But eventually, she looks so good she feels it would be a shame not to show anybody.

At seven forty p.m., she opens her bedroom door and walks down the hallway to the living room, Girls Aloud hammering in her ears.

Stops short. The air feels wrong. The scent, the taste, even the way the air flows over her skin.

And then she sees him. A figure, clad in black, on his knees as if in prayer.

Eva-Jayne is laid out on the floor in a spreading pool of sticky red blood. There is so much red around her mouth that for a moment Roisin cannot make sense of what she is seeing. There is something vampiric about her face; something ghoulish in the pure whiteness of her face, the agony in her expression, the crude knife strokes scored into her flesh.