Casey reacted faster. She threw herself over the back of the sofa, diving for cover. The gun fired, and the terrarium exploded by her ear, shards of glass ripping through the air. She scrambled frantically for the door, bullets blasting into the wall inches from her head.

Somehow Casey made it to the door. A frantic scrabble at the handle, and she was racing across the hall to the oak door and out into the air. Down the stairs she bolted, and across the gravel. In the slow dawn, the gardens spread out before her, the acres of Tawton’s park beyond. In the far distance was the deep safety of the New Forest. There was no sign of Miranda.

Casey didn’t hesitate. She raced across the lawn, past the darkness of the rhododendrons, leaped down the haha and sprinted across the park.

There was silence behind her. Casey was running faster than she ever had, making for the cover of the woods. The grass seemed to sprawl out for ever, but finally, finally, she reached the shadow of the woodland.

Casey slammed into the first oak, using the tree to swing round and check whether Clio was following.

The parkland was empty, the silence eerie.

Gasping, she scanned the house, the gardens, the park. Nothing.

She turned. Trying to remember the map, she sprinted off through the trees.

It was very dark in the forest, the grey of the morning only just piercing the gloom. Casey slipped on last year’s beech leaves, and struggled over fallen branches. Legs burning, lungs heaving, she ran and ran, blundering into animal burrows, hair catching on twigs. It felt as if the wood was trying to grasp her. Grab her, trap her, keep her for ever. Witch brambles tangled her feet, and she almost screamed at the scuttle of some animal.

Behind her, the silence was almost unbearable.

Clio would never let her escape. Never.

Casey scrambled on and on. Surely there should be a road here? Surely . . . But there was nothing. The wood seemed endless, with its spiking enemy branches. And slowly, so slowly, Casey realised she was lost.

She ran on, desperate now. Glanced over her shoulder one more time. The ground dipped away sharply beneath her feet, and she sprawled forward, slamming hard into the dirt.

And there, slumped on the earth, she heard it: far in the distance, the sorrowful bay of the bloodhounds.

Clio was riding the big horse with careless ease, cantering smoothly.

Casey ran, the whole world blurring as every fibre of her being fought to get away. She raced down a slope, feet slapping the ground with the burning panic of a hunted animal. Branches ripped at her clothes, and the dark closed in.