She pulled her coat tightly around her. It had dropped five degrees at least since she had pitched up for her stakeout as Priest had instructed and the fur lining on her anorak wasn’t sufficient to keep the cold out. As she struggled for warmth, watching her breath swirl into wisps of vapour in front of her, she started to realise that going into the gym on her own wasn’t a particularly clever plan.

‘You need to go on your own,’ Charlie had told her.

‘Really? You don’t think . . . ?’

‘She’ll run a mile as soon as she sees me. You’re less of a threat.’

The three patrons they had encountered last time might well still be there, just out of view, and they would surely recognise her. And without Charlie, where would she be then? At the bottom of the Thames, presumably.

Georgie shuddered.

She tried to get her feet to move but they seemed to be stuck to the ground. Georgie suspected that her observation hideout served as a homeless man’s place of residence for part of the week, which would explain the smell, but not her inability to move.

She was bloody scared.

‘Oh, this is ridiculous,’ she said out loud, forcing herself to move. It’s just a gym.

She half stumbled across the road inwardly shouting at herself to get a grip. There are very few monsters who warrant the fear we have in them. She repeated the phrase over and over but, as she approached the blinding fluorescent radiance of the gym facade, even André Gide’s comforting words weren’t enough to shrink the knot in her stomach.

Georgie opened the door, which triggered a tone at the back of the gym. She quickly scanned the interior but couldn’t see anyone. Maybe everyone had gone home? And left the door unlocked?

‘We’re about to close up,’ shouted an unimpressed voice, which made Georgie jump.

She whirled around and saw that Mims was collecting dumb-bells and piling them in a box in the corner of the room. The girl looked up, her blue hair ruffled and straw-like, and at first she regarded Georgie with disinterest, until recognition slowly overcame her.

‘Wait a minute,’ said Mims, squaring up. ‘You were here with that guy who beat up Benny.’

‘Charlie hardly beat him up,’ Georgie pointed out.

Mims snarled and, for a moment, Georgie thought she might attack her, until she swore loudly, turned and bolted towards the back door. Georgie followed her but without conviction – she wasn’t going to chase anyone the wrong way down a motorway. And besides, she didn’t need to.

As Mims reached the back of the gym the rear door burst open and she rebounded off Charlie’s heavy torso.