The lights flick into life as she ducks inside, She finds herself in the big cool cathedral of a long changing room: wooden doors and banks of clean, well-maintained lockers. There’s a smell of soap and sweat; the high, bright tang of disinfectant. She puts the stolen mobile phone into a bin for dirty towels. Glances at the clock on the wall. They’ll be here, soon. Here to collect her. To put things back together.

One wall is entirely mirrored. She sees herself. Sees something half drowned; bedraggled and broken down. There’s dirt smudging her cheek. Mud and blood on her wrist. She peers at the graze on her skin as if the wound belongs to somebody else. She has a flash of memory; of the charm bracelet digging into her skin, snagging, snapping: her silver treasures tumbling into Eva-Jayne’s blood.

She watches dispassionately as the girl in the mirror begins to sob: silvery tears charting tracks in the dirt. Turns her back on the image, hoping she can leave the weak, snivelling creature in the mirror and move forward unimpeded by tears. She will grieve for Eva-Jayne in her own time and in her own way. She’ll tell Daddy, and Daddy will put the man who did it in the dirt.

Alert for any sounds, her senses cat-like in their keenness, she hurries past the lockers to the showers. Slips inside an open cubicle and presses her palm to the fat button set into the neat mosaic of tiles. Strips as glorious clean hot water cascades from the shower head. She finds soap in a plastic container bolted to the wall and squeezes great dollops into her palm. She has never been in a place like this. Has showered in cold water as often as hot. She soaps her clothes first, scrubbing the dirty fabric against itself, until her feet stand in a swirl of brown water. Scrubs herself next, under her nails, behind her ears, removing every trace of Eva-Jayne’s flat, and her night and day hunkered down in the forest.

She steps from the shower. Wrings out her clothes. Climbs back into them, wincing at the touch of wet fabric. There are hairdryers by the row of sinks and Roisin would love nothing more than to blast hot air onto her damp clothes and skin, but she has no doubt that the sound would bring somebody running and she doesn’t have the strength for confrontation.

She walks past the mirror and back into the hallway. There’s a glass fire door to her left but she doesn’t want to trigger any alarms so she leaves the same way she came in. The same young woman is manning the reception area, playing with her phone and looking generally bored. Roisin taps on the glass and she’s buzzed through into the brightly lit lobby of the spa. Glances at racks of sportswear: golfing jerseys, waterproof coats: swimming costumes stretched over elegant mannequins.

‘You forgot to sign in …’

And Roisin is moving quickly again, passing down a corridor and through the double doors, back into the darkness and the swirl of rain. She shivers. Hears her teeth chatter. Moves quickly past the warm yellow light of a ground-floor hotel room, a flash of skin and bed linen; the insinuation of naked flesh as she darts back to the treeline.