‘Why make me do something like this?’ Holly said quickly, almost a little too loudly. ‘I don’t understand. How much longer do I have to do this?’

‘You like playing games with people. With their emotions, their lives. Now it’s your turn. You’re going to finish this.’

‘Why here? Why this late?’

‘I thought you’d know the place…’

Holly frowned, looking around, trying to remember where she was. Another time she had been there. A glimpse of memory came to her, but disappeared just as quick. ‘I don’t. I’m sorry.’

The static on the line went silent. Holly thought the voice had hung up on her and she felt a momentary lapse of reason. Imagined being left there alone, no way out. The darkness around her became suffocating. It all became too much in an instant. The thought of being exposed. The thought of being ridiculed and shamed.

‘No, you can go on,’ the voice said finally, relief flooding Holly’s veins at the sound of it.

‘Okay, I’m sorry,’ Holly replied, hearing the earnest whisper escape her mouth. ‘I know I’ve done something wrong. Please, don’t tell anyone…’

‘Stop your whining. Carry out the instructions. Good luck.’

The voice talked her through The Game again, not that she understood much of what was said. She listened to every word intently, scared of missing something.

Why are you doing this? It’s obviously crazy.

She ignored her own voice, screaming inside her. Listened carefully to the words, hoping it was enough to just do whatever it said and be done with it all.

No more worry.

She could fix things with her parents. Tell them she’d gone slightly crazy for a day. That it didn’t mean anything, all that trouble with the police. Tell them anything so they wouldn’t look at her with that worried look in their eyes.

The call ended abruptly. She kept hold of her phone, thinking it would buzz again within seconds. Every step memorised, she walked further up the promenade, feeling the chill in the air. Out on the beach, she knew the Gormley statues would be looking out on the same vista as she had. They were a secondary thought to her now, as she soon found the secluded place that had been described to her.

‘One, two, three,’ she whispered, the air silent and still around her. She walked three paces forward, then two to her right-hand side. ‘One, two, three, four.’

She continued for another two minutes, walking back and forth and side to side. A pattern that she’d had to commit to memory.

Holly turned in a circle, recited words, and then went back to the beginning. Began the process all over again.

Repeated it twice.