There were three of them squashed on the back seat. Macca, Brooke and Ebenezer. Ebenezer was trying to keep out of it, but he would occasionally snap and weigh in with some unhelpful remark. None of it was clever, and most of it didn’t really make any sense. It was incredibly tiring, though, having to listen to it.

Brooke was quite thin, to tell the truth. They’d all lost a lot of weight since the disease struck. There was never enough food. But she was lean and muscular rather than anorexic. And it had to be said that Macca was a bit of a mess, and hygiene had never been his strong point. He was almost proud of it. He had several layers of clothing on, and Ed had never known him change them. In the cramped confines of the car he was giving off a warm, ripe aroma. He never cut his hair either, kept it tied back in a loose ponytail, with bits sticking out all over the place, and that was causing Brooke problems. She kept leaning away and trying to keep it off her.

‘I thought the biggest problem on this trip was going to be sickos,’ she said. ‘Not Mister Stink here.’

‘What’s your plan then?’ said Macca. ‘You gonna bore them sickos to death, or scare them to death with your supernatural ugliness?’

‘I am so far out of your league you can’t even see me, you dirty tramp,’ said Brooke.

‘Who said that?’ Macca laughed and shook his hair at her.

‘Get your DNA out of my face,’ Brooke shrieked and shoved him away.

Ed couldn’t be bothered to tell them to shut up again. He had a bad headache and it was making his scar throb and itch horribly. Too many mixed-up memories were coming back to him, of trips in the Rowhurst School minibus to play cricket or football at another school. Trips to Sevenoaks and Tonbridge and Rochester. The other boys on the bus making too much noise, farting as if it was an Olympic skill, teasing each other, telling filthy jokes, telling filthy lies, boasting about things they’d never done with girls. And another bus trip – a year ago. When Greg the butcher had picked up him and his friends after they’d escaped from Rowhurst. Brooke had already been on it, with her two friends, Courtney and Aleisha. The three of them sitting at the back, teasing the boys, winding him up. Seemed like a million years ago. How many of them on that bus had died? Jack and Bam and Piers; Courtney, Aleisha; Greg’s son, Liam; the French girl with the cat, Frédérique …

Ghosts.