‘Is he in the ice house?’ Meredith tried to keep the fear out of her voice, but the feel of the gun barrel pressing into her liver was as petrifying as that night in the van; as if the gun’s mouth was literally tapping into her terror; it was somehow more visceral like this than seeing it trained on her face.

Caitlin just smiled, an infuriating little smirk that pushed her cheeks into two puffy cushions and made her eyes almost vanish. ‘I know all about how good your “security” is, Meredith.’

She gave a manic thumbs-up, like someone about to watch a favourite TV show, something she’d looked forward to all week. It was impossible to imagine Samantha in a relationship with this insane woman, thought Meredith.

But then Caitlin had been young and gorgeous once too. Perhaps Samantha was just as bloated, her strawberry-red hair now dulled and grey, her teeth as misshapen and stained as Caitlin’s. For a furious moment, Meredith wished Samantha was there, standing in front of her right now. She’d grab Caitlin’s gun and kill her without hesitation, for all the pain she’d blithely inflicted for so many years.

But first she had to rescue Pete.

The fear returned, and Meredith realised it was fear for Pete, not for herself. That helped, in a small way: took it outside of herself, gave it a name and a purpose.

‘Hey,’ Caitlin said as they left the house, pushing Meredith ahead of her and closing the door behind them. ‘I love your dungarees, where did you get them?’

What the fuck? The woman was off her head. Meredith didn’t answer, shoving her hands into the deep pockets of the dungarees as they walked along the gravel path in the shadow of the huge old wall of the vegetable garden. The moon was bright, illuminating their way, and the gentle hoot of an owl felt very slightly reassuring.

‘Charity shop,’ Meredith muttered at last.

‘Ew,’ said Caitlin. ‘How you can wear other people’s cast-offs I just don’t know. Disgusting. You might find anything in the pockets.’

Meredith almost stopped in her tracks. A huge jolt of fresh adrenaline swept up and down her body. The pockets! Could it still be in there? Very, very slowly, as Caitlin walked behind her, she crept the fingers of her right hand up towards her belly button and a few inches higher, to feel through the denim at the bottom of the dungarees’ bib pocket.

It was still there! Caitlin hadn’t thought to check that pocket when she’d been frisking/slapping her – perhaps she hadn’t realised there was even a pocket up there.