She hurries downstairs and puts her wellies on, leaving a note for Kirsty. She stops still, remembering the woman’s voice over the radio. Outside looks dark, but there are people with torches and if she were to scream they would hear her. She knows she has to be brave. Then she realizes she is the only one with the key to her house and decides that is where she should start looking. If her father is home, she’ll text them. She makes her way back over the dark field towards her home. She doesn’t feel scared if she stands still and lets her eyes open up to the dark night around her, remembering it is the same place it was in the sunlight. The neighbours’ torches are bright specks behind her, but when she stands still, she can hear the voices of Malcolm and Angela calling: ‘Ann-Marie! Ann-Marie!’

Back at her house she peers into the front drive and sees the pickup there, frosted over, like a dark block of ice.

She runs up to her father’s bedroom. ‘Dad! Dad?’ The house is still chilly and dark. She hears Jameson behind her, barking, excited she is home. She ignores him and, switching the lights on as she goes, creeps into her empty bedroom and then the bathroom. Nothing. She yanks back the mildewed shower curtain. The bath is empty too. She picks up the torch from the landing cupboard on her way back downstairs.

He is not sitting on the sofa or cooking in the kitchen. The house is vacant, yet she still calls his name, hoping she’s made a mistake. He wouldn’t go far without his pickup.

The only room she has not checked is the one she is not allowed to go into. She tries the door and finds it unlocked. (Has it always been unlocked?) Inside, cardboard boxes are heaped in a corner. A woman’s dress is draped in a dry-cleaning bag over the yellow sofa and a pair of women’s boots stand by the mantelpiece. Extinguished candles are sitting in a line. Lauren leaves quickly and calls out for her father once again. She opens the sliding door and peers around the garden. It’s only the dark, she tells herself. The dark can’t hurt you. Her body feels skittish.

A buzzard is sitting on the fence post, watching her. It takes off into the sky, towards the woods. ‘Dad?’ She doesn’t know why she is calling for him. She takes her mountain bike from under a tarp, clicks on the front light and wheels it along the back way, where the edge of her garden meets the fields and a track runs in between. She can see lights bobbing at the edge of a distant field.