Lauren is bleary, but scared too. She murmurs, ‘When we were in the woods, we found a house. And there was a manny inside. Hidden. Diane’s telling the police. ’

Vairi stops what she is about to say and her face crinkles with shrewd curiosity. ‘What did he look like?’

‘It was too dark.’ Lauren shakes her head at the images that fly in. When she talks, she tries to describe a photograph of the place. Still and far away from her. ‘It was old. Run-down. There was no glass in the windows. Everything was broken.’

‘A manny, eh? A manny. Those woods. Ten miles wide they are. Used to ride my bike round the Loop all the time as a girl. That must cover less than a quarter of that whole area, you know. Lived in the house next to Diane’s. That was where my parents were. I know that track like the back of my hand, but I can’t say I know about a house, no.’

‘It was a different bit. Further up. Much further.’

‘You should have stayed away from the likes of that.’

She remembers the sound Diane made when the man grabbed her. She focuses on a picture on the wall: a basket of puppies with a blue bow. She wants something familiar, not this strange room, with this strange woman. Eyes like the High Priestess. The classroom, with her teacher, suddenly feels safe. She remembers when they left the basement. Diane was close behind. They ran in the direction they had come from until Diane stopped and heaved up sick.

‘And what’s that on your thumb there?’

‘Nothing,’ Lauren says, covering the ring with her other hand. It’s private. ‘Just something I found in the woods. Jameson dug it up. It’s mine.’

‘Let me see that now!’ Vairi’s frail hand grabs Lauren’s wrist with surprising strength.

‘Let go!’ She needs to get out of here.

‘Give that. Give that here.’ She yanks Lauren’s arm again.

Lauren squeals as the muscles pull tight and she is in the basement again, the man’s hand around Diane’s leg. She twists away and the little dogs start to yap on the landing.

‘Stop that. Come on now.’ Vairi picks up the ring in her dainty hand and holds it close to one eye.

‘I didn’t find this at the house,’ Lauren says. ‘It was yesterday. In the snow, in the woods. A ring. Lady’s ring.’ She wishes the lady were here now. The way she had sat on the edge of her bed.

‘Mmm. Mmm-hmm.’ Vairi is silent for a while. ‘You got this from the woods, you say?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’ve never seen it before?’

Lauren stays silent. It belongs to the young woman who visited.

Vairi says briskly, ‘You can wait downstairs in the lounge, before Craig comes to pick you up. I’ve put the fire on.’