‘Take a seat,’ said Marsha, and Milly looked around. There was nowhere to sit, except the bed, so she sat on that, trying not to notice that it stank. The sheets were filthy.

‘Right,’ said Marsha, throwing her black biker jacket onto the floor. She slumped down on the bed beside Milly and reached into her bag and pulled out a water bottle with no screw cap on it; instead there was masking tape and tinfoil, and a glass pipe poking out of a hole in the side, the gap around it sealed with Blu-tack.

Milly started to feel apprehensive. She didn’t know this girl. She had no clue what she was doing. Marsha pulled out a plastic-wrapped batch of several small cream-coloured rocks from her skirt pocket. She placed one of the rocks on the square of tinfoil and heated it underneath with the flame from a Bic lighter. After a moment the inside of the bottle started to fill with pale smoke. Marsha inhaled it through the pipe and started to smile.

‘Now you,’ she said, pushing it toward Milly.

‘What is it?’ asked Milly.

‘Crack. Go on. It’s good.’

Milly pulled the bottle toward her, put the pipe in her mouth, and inhaled.

108

Belle was in the lane, walking through the pouring rain. Lightning crashed overhead. She walked even though she could barely feel her legs. She was shuddering, and when she put her hand out in front of her in the strobing blue-white half-dark she could see it shaking, she could feel it, tremors zipping not only through her arms but throughout her whole body. She was going to pass out. She knew she was. She would fall down flat and someone would come hurtling through here in a car and then she really would be dead.

There were no streetlights out here. The rain was drenching. Thunder rolled in the distance, then more lightning split the sky, neon-bright. She had no idea what direction she was heading in or what she was going to do. She could hear owls hooting in the woods and far away in the distance a fox barked. Trembling, soaked through and shivery from the water and feeling more wetness, frightening wetness, drenching her, dripping down from her head and streaming from the punctures on her leg, she stepped up onto the grass verge, moaning with pain as she moved.

Then . . . Christ, a car! She half-turned, seeing the full beam of headlights, and thought oh thank God.

Then she felt a fresh bolt of terror.

What if it was them?