Carrie had read about online bullying, but she had no idea how bad it could be. The things that were posted, the lies and rumours and insults, the sheer cruelty – she didn’t even want to think about them.

It had reached a head when Nancy had refused to go to school at all. When Carrie pushed, she showed her a photo.

It was a naked woman in an obscene pose, with Nancy’s head photoshopped onto the body. It looked very realistic, and, it turned out, many of her classmates thought it was her daughter – her then fourteen-year-old daughter. Nancy had received a barrage of messages from them, calling her a slut or a whore, others asking her for blowjobs or if she did threesomes, others simply taunting her with messages like You’ll always be porn girl or every town needs a bike for all the boys to ride.

Nancy had begged her parents not to say anything to anyone – You’ll just make it worse, she said, although Carrie didn’t know how it could be worse – but they had insisted. The school and the police had done what they could, which, since the photo had come from an anonymous account, was nothing other than talk to the pupils to try and scare them into leaving Nancy alone.

Which they did. She was cold-shouldered and excluded and sniggered at in the corridor. Dana did all the things bullies did: she stared at her for long periods of time, whispered when she passed by, burst out laughing if she saw her.

So Carrie was glad the Coronavirus had come, glad when school closed early, glad to have her daughter back in the house where she could try to repair the damage.

Because Nancy was shattered. Pale, thin, drawn, unable to take pleasure in anything.

But gradually she started to eat and laugh and read and recover something of who she had been.

Carrie and Rob had looked for houses in another school district. They were going to make a new start, get their daughter out of the hell she had been in.

They were going to move on.

But first there was the summer to get through. And today was a good start. Sun, sea air, exercise.

Carrie sipped her seltzer. Nancy was about a hundred yards away, ambling along the beach by a low cliff. She started to climb it. It was not all that high – maybe thirty feet – but the far side was a sheer drop onto an outcrop of jagged rocks, against which the waves crashed and pounded.

When she reached the top she paused and looked out over the ocean, then took a deep breath.

Yes, Carrie thought, breathe it in. Breathe in that strength and health and life.

And then Nancy started, like a deer that has heard a rifle shot. She looked over her shoulder and froze.

Nancy followed her gaze. And there she was.

Standing behind her on the cliff.

Dana.