Dom lay on the couch in the front room, head back. Dead to the world. He might come with her, if Jess asked. Or not. Hard to tell. She couldn’t take the risk. Sorry, bruv. She tiptoed on down the hall.

The kitchen was empty. Steam still rose from a mug on the table; a pencil-line of smoke hung above the ashtray where Mum hadn’t put her fag out properly.

Jess stroked Joel’s head. Her little boy, having to breathe that in, along with the damp in the air and the whole rotten stale shitty smell of the place. She was angry suddenly. She remembered the surgery on Hollybeck Row, and Dr Emmanuel. That had smelt clean. She hadn’t realised how bad the air here was until she’d come back to it. Clean air was like the boys in her scrapbook. It was lovely, but it wasn’t meant for someone like her.

Well, she didn’t know about the boys, but she was leaving home at last, telling Mum and the rest to fuck off, and it was a new world anyway, one where anything could happen. But the air was different. Even if she didn’t deserve clean air, Joel did.

Dull black metal gleamed on the table. The pistol lay there, beside a full spare magazine and a box of bullets.

She hesitated. How long before they bothered themselves to wonder where useless Jess was, or Mum decided to check the Family Bible again? Jess didn’t know. Or how much sooner either of those things might happen if the gun wasn’t there.

But if she had the gun, she could stop them taking her back. One way or the other. If she had to.

Could she, though? Shoot at her own family? Her mother, her brothers – even Keira? Or turn the gun on herself so they couldn’t take her back? And what about Joel? Would she leave him alone with them, or –?

Jess shook her head. No. It would’ve been easy to put the gun in her coat pocket, but there was more danger than safety in it, and she was carrying enough extra weight around already.

She opened the back door; it wasn’t locked now. Mum wouldn’t have bothered: no-one to keep out now, not until dark.

Cold wind blew into her face, and flecks of snow.

Jess stepped outside and eased the door shut behind her. Joel grizzled again as the cold nipped at him. “Hush baba,” she said, rocking him. “Hush.” The cry building in his tiny throat ebbed away.

Jess followed Mum’s tracks through the backyard till she was clear of the farm buildings. They led across the narrowing fields: Mum’d already crossed the big one behind the house and shut the gate behind her, heading over the next. All across Thursdale, towards Barrow Woods.