I turn on the wipers as the windscreen mists with rain. ‘My granddad’s dead,’ I say. ‘My mum sent me a text earlier.’

When I was in the bedroom with Jake. When I still thought I had an escape route.

Granddad’s dead, the text said. Not, how are you, Kira? Or, I know you loved him. Or, I know it’s a bit of a shock.

Just Granddad’s dead. She might as well have written, it’s over. It’s all over now, Kira.

‘Oh.’ Billy shrugs. ‘Sorry about that.’

‘Yeah.’

I move down a gear and indicate right, then turn into a small country lane. There is a building and small patch of well-kept grass hidden in the depths of the countryside. You’d miss it if you didn’t know what you were looking for.

‘Where the hell are we?’ Billy says as the tyres crunch on gravel and I pull in to the car park.

‘The boules club.’ I turn off the engine and undo my seat belt.

‘In the middle of nowhere?’

‘My dad worked here. He was a handyman. He cut the green.’

‘So?’

I open the van door and step outside. I take a deep breath of cool, crisp air, then set off along the path between the green and the clubhouse. There are no houses nearby, no street lights, no pavement. Billy was right: the place I’ve driven us to is in the middle of nowhere, nestled between fields and woodland.

‘You want to play with balls in the middle of the night? I’d have let you have a go on mine if you’d asked nicely.’ Billy laughs as he runs to catch up. ‘Hey! Where are you going?’

I reach the wood – tall, dense and imposing – that separates the clubhouse from the fields that surround it. It’s at least an acre in size and belongs to the farmer who owns the fields. My dad used to say what a shame it was that he’d let it get so overgrown and unkempt. It was an eyesore, he said, compared to the neatly trimmed lawn of the boules club. I told him I thought a witch lived in it, and that was why the farmer stayed away.

There’s a wire fence that runs all the way around the wood – a fence that’s been put up since Dad killed himself – and, for a second, I’m terrified that there’s no way in, but then I find a place where it’s come away from the base of the fence post, unnoticeable unless you look carefully. I peel it back. Not enough space for Billy to get through but I’m smaller than him.

‘What the hell?’ I feel Billy grab at my right trainer as I squeeze through the gap, but my shoe is slippery from the rain and his hand falls away as I kick out at him.

And then I’m in.