When her father isn’t in there, the work shed is locked up, but if he is, she creeps up to the draughty entrance and looks at the sharp metal tools hanging from the walls, both frightening and alluring. If he catches her standing there, he’ll yell at her to get back inside. A few weeks ago, when he had been out working at someone’s house, she saw the shed keys, glinting, dropped accidentally on the ground. Certain he would not be back for a couple of hours, she opened the shed padlock with a clunk. Inside, she studied the bow saws of different sizes on the walls and the rope and electrical leads that coiled around giant cotton reels. They were all precious, simply because they were forbidden. It made her heart race to know she had been here and touched these surfaces, one by one, and that no one would have to know and she wouldn’t get shouted at.

She looked along the shelves and in boxes, as if trying to find something as yet unknown to her. A clue that Niall was not just her father, but also a human being, with parts to his life she didn’t know about. The table in the middle of the shed was made of thick, battered wood that, like everything around it, was spattered with paint. Next to a couple of sandbags and a roll of carpet mesh, Lauren found a rusty blue tool box with two sides that folded out like bug’s wings. Among the screwdrivers and nails she found this sleek piece of antler with a wide steel blade about as long as her foot. This was her treasure, her trophy. The thing that had made the adventure worthwhile. She holds it now and enjoys its weight in her hand.

On the path to the forest, she finds the dog biscuit she is looking for and throws it to Jameson. He leaps in the air, twisting like a salmon.

‘Dare you to eat one of them,’ Billy says.

‘Don’t think so,’ says Lauren, trudging on, her hands clenched in her pockets.

After stealing the knife, she was careful to leave everything in the shed as she had found it, and locked the door behind her as she left. Just before her father walked into the room, she put the keys down the side of the sofa. She still wished she could tell someone this story and how quick-thinking she had been.

Billy tries to keep up with her. ‘Mind when Grant MacBride ate they dog biscuits, that time on the bus.’

Lauren doesn’t reply. They walk some more in the November air. The juniper bushes and giant hogweed thicken at the sides of the path as they go. Billy takes some foil-wrapped chocolates from his pocket, left over from guising. ‘One for one?’

‘What, a dog biscuit?’

‘No-o! Have you got any more gummies? You know, the ones Angela Walker had.’