They walk for half an hour in the snow, keeping to the deer tracks. This time around, Lauren notices how close they are to a bigger track, through the trees, its tarmac overgrown. She sees the shape of a parked car. She looks again and tugs Diane’s sleeve. ‘Look. Isn’t that yours?’

‘What the hell?’ Diane sprints over the snowy undergrowth. Together they call Ann-Marie’s name. Lola circles the area like a wolf.

When Diane comes panting back, Lauren asks, ‘Can’t we drive home?’

Diane whispers her reply, ‘No. Better not. The keys aren’t in the ignition. We need to keep it there.’

‘But who—’

‘They did. This bad guy and Ann-Marie. I’m telling the police as soon as we get back. Let’s just try and find her first. At least try.’

Lauren can hear the fear in her voice. Her eyes are wide and white.

After another few miles of trudging in the cold through the trees, they reach the dilapidated house. It looks jagged under the torch beam. Diane switches the torch off and darkness drops. When they’re close, Lauren stops in her tracks; then she edges a little further. ‘Are you sure you want to go in?’

Lola makes a noise that is half a whine and half a whimper, pulling back on her lead.

‘Well, no,’ says Diane, ‘but she could be in danger. Lola. Stay outside.’ She drops the lead. ‘We’ll only be a few minutes.’

‘We?’

‘Yes.’ She grabs Lauren’s coat sleeve. ‘I need to know where you are. I’m not letting you out of my sight.’

Lauren’s stomach lurches. She creeps to the entrance, telling Lola to stay behind, and cranes her head inside the gloomy hallway.

The wooden floor has been ripped up in places with splinters spiking up here and there like tufts of grass. In the dark, Lauren makes out peeling wallpaper and a rotten staircase. Beyond that is dark. Outside the wind rustles the trees.

‘Ann … Ann-Marie?’ she calls.

There is a creak and then a crash in the room next door.

Before the girls have a chance to react, the ground beneath them rumbles like a small earthquake and they freeze. There is the sound of crockery clattering from another room and they lose their balance, falling hard on the floor. As Lauren tries to scramble up in the dark, the heavy front door to their left creaks wide open and then bangs shut. A sound rattles through the house like a train passing. Diane shines the torch on the front door. It is covered in scratches, as if an animal has been at it. On the back of the door, there hangs a white dressing gown, blanketed in mould.