‘Not just yet,’ says the manipulative boyfriend with the weighing-down arm. It grips me tighter; it holds me fast. ‘Let’s have a go on the Hook-a-Duck. And then how about the Crooked House? Someone got locked in one of those things once. They weren’t discovered for fifteen hours. Dino likes the Crooked House, don’t you, Dino?’

‘Yeah,’ says Dino. ‘I like a lot of things.’ He flashes me a charming smile.

‘Are you a barrister, too?’ I ask him weakly. I feel if I attempt conversation, I won’t feel so panicked – so trapped.

‘No,’ he says. ‘I’m a driver. For a soft-drinks company.’

‘Oh, right.’

Salvi’s grip bears on me like an anchor. We keep walking. Salvi steers me towards the stall with the giant yellow ducks, with hooks in their heads. I see those two boys again, over by the peeling and chipped fortune teller’s head in the glass box – the boys in the white trainers and basketball vests. I wish I had the strength to struggle free of Salvi’s grasp and break away. I wish I could shake off the fourteen-year-old girl inside.

Salvi hands the man – a grinning bulldog in a retro Dukes of Hazzard T-shirt – a twenty-pound note.

‘No change, mate; I’ll have to go and get you some.’

Salvi dismisses him with a wave of the hand. ‘Play on, good fellow. We’ll sort that after.’

Dino and I step back and watch as Salvi expertly hooks three ducks and claims his prize.

‘Cuddly Shrek, blow-up Sponge Bob or a balloon?’ grunts the man.

‘Balloon,’ says Salvi, and he points to a huge hot-pink one, heart shaped, high up on the stuffed hanging rack. It has ‘Kiss me’ on it, in a pair of red lips. I don’t want this balloon. I don’t want Salvi to kiss me. I want to escape and go to my dad, and to Kemp. But I feel strangely powerless.

The bulldog hooks down the balloon and hands it to Salvi. He immediately steps forward and bonks Dino on the head with it, then Dino grabs it, pulls it to his chest, laughing. ‘Kiss me,’ he says to me, in a saliva-y lisp.

‘I need to go now,’ I say weakly.

‘Hang on,’ says Salvi. He takes the end of the string and ties it into a small bow, double knot. ‘Just prettying it up,’ he says and he takes the balloon from Dino by the string and hands it to me, while my spinning world stops.

CHAPTER 46

‘Philippa,’ I say, trying hard to catch my breath.

‘What?’

‘Philippa’s balloon.’