Chloe suddenly tugged on his sleeve. ‘Jesus,’ she whispered, ‘where’d she come from?’

At the end of the laneway there was a child.

She was barefoot. Her dress shapeless and cut from discoloured fabric. Its stitching was crude; reminiscent of Frankenstein’s monster with its mismatched skin tones sewn together. Her head was a tousled mess of brown hair. She was stood perfectly still but slightly atilt, as though one leg were shorter than the other. Her face had an odd little nub for a nose and was daubed all over with muddy fingerprints.

Ben took a tenuous step forward, hands held up in mock surrender. The child wasn’t exactly a wild animal but her hard stare was eerily reminiscent of a cagey tomcat.

‘Hello,’ he said, waving both palms like a mime.

She just stared at him, unblinking, as though her eyes were lidless.

‘What’s your name?’ Ben asked.

The girl’s lips stretched into a lurid grin but the eyes remained dark. She didn’t seem at all surprised to see them. Perhaps the tripwire was to thank for that.

‘My name is Ben,’ he said, his voice velvet soft, ‘and this pretty lady is called Chloe.’

‘Pretty lady?’ Chloe whispered.

‘Shush your gums,’ he replied, still focused on the child as though any sudden movement might chase her into the trees. ‘What’s your name?’

The smile was set on her face, with cheeks like lumps of hardened pottery clay. Ben waited for some response to show that she understood. But she just held his gaze, her head hanging slightly downward as though it stored secrets too heavy to hold up.

‘What’s your name, kid?’ Chloe asked, far louder than Ben’s measured whisper.

The child turned and bolted, her bare feet taking her down the lane and around the corner, disappearing behind a hedge twice her height.

‘Nicely done, Ms Coogan,’ Ben said.

‘Hey, in my defence she did scare me first.’

‘Come on.’ He chuckled, patting her on the shoulder. ‘Let’s see where she went.’

They walked on, more cautiously now, suspecting that their presence had been advertised on some ivy-clad billboard. The walls on either side had grown in height, and a cool shade reached out from the wilder privets. When they rounded the corner, Ben had half-expected for the girl to be waiting for them like an apparition always just out of reach, but she was nowhere to be seen.

‘You’d better keep that out of sight while we’re here,’ Ben said, winking down at Chloe’s phone.

‘Oh, do you reckon?’ she replied sarcastically. ‘I doubt we’ll need phones to make an impression on this crowd.’

Without coverage there was no way to call for help should they need it. A few unexpected causes for concern had joined their party, but they wouldn’t slow them down. Ben was more than capable of doing that on his own.