Jude blinked away her abrupt tears. “Thank you. Really. Thank you.”

He jerked his shoulders, embarrassed. “S’all right.”

She took the mobile and then she didn’t know what to do. She didn’t have Leila’s number in her head, or barely any number except her parents’, and they were three hours away from here. And Nat’s: even more hopeless. Maybe she should call emergency services.

Then she had a thought: she knew her own number.

As she keyed it in, it occurred to her that she hadn’t ended her call with Leila, so maybe it wouldn’t ring. But it rang. And someone picked it up. A male voice, calm and inquiring, with an Essex accent. Not Dermot.

“I’m Jude,” she said with a sob. “This is me.”

“Jude?”

“Yes. Who are you?”

“Hold on one moment.”

There was a slight pause, and another voice came on.

“Jude?”

“Leila? Is that you?”

“Yes. Are you all right? Where are you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Look around you,” said Leila patiently. “Tell me the street.”

“Um. Southwick Road where it joins with Talbot Street.”

“Wait there.”

Jude handed the mobile back to the boy.

“That was really nice of you.”

“Nothing.” He slid the phone into his pocket.

“You’ve no idea,” she said, and watched as he shuffled off.

She propped herself against a lamppost. Her body was a blizzard of strange sensations: pain and fear and confusion. What had just happened? Had Dermot come to murder her and had she thrown a kettle of boiling water over him and had she escaped? Was he badly hurt? Was she safe?

She suddenly realized how cold it was, how cold she was, in the winter chill. Everyone was in thick coats, gloves, hats, scarves wrapped round their necks and heads lowered against the hard wind. She was in a T-shirt, thin jeans and a single slipper. The knowledge made her start to shiver violently. She wrapped her goose-pimply arms against herself.

Dermot, she thought. It was Dermot all along. Liam had been killed by his younger brother. But why? And why had he targeted her? She was turning it over and over in her mind when a car drew up beside her and she jerked back, half-expecting to see Dermot’s face at the window. There were two people in the front: a young man driving and, beside him, Leila Fox.

Jude let out the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.

Leila got out and looked at her in dismay.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes.”

“You must be freezing.”

“Yes.”

“Come on.”

Leila led her to the car and helped her into the back seat, leaning over her to buckle the safety belt as if she was a small child. She got in beside her. But they didn’t drive very far, just a few hundred meters along the road and up a small side street where they came to a halt.