Now he took a fistful of her hair and pulled her head to one side. Then, tightening his grip as he turned away, he began to drag her from the stairs and back into the room, that underground room where she was not meant to die.

Without the prompting of conscious thought, her hands flew to his face and she pressed her thumbs into his eye sockets as hard as she could.

Deep and deep and deep.

His turn to feel the pain.

Rotten bastards. Rotten bastards the lot of them.

The two of them stood there, locked together in the intimacy of dance partners, his fist still in her hair while she summoned all her remaining strength to push into the mocking blue eyes, her fingers with their nails cracked and bloody and suddenly stinging as she scrabbled for purchase in his thick black hair, gripping his ears, losing the grip, finding it again, pushing the thumbs deeper, then her left hand falling away as he reeled backwards with a rising shriek of agony, lashing out at her, and missing, but her right thumb still there, still pushed into his left eye socket as he tried to shove her away, her thumb pressing against his eyeball for a few more crucial seconds until she suddenly felt it give with a soft wet squelch and sink towards the back of his head.

He screamed.

His scream filled the basement, filled her head, filled the night. They were on their feet at the table but paralysed by the screams of the boy who had just lost an eye.

Then she ran.

How she ran.

Flying up the stairs.

The door locked from the inside but with the key mercifully still in the lock – thank God for the key – fumbling with it, the cries behind her, and then she was out into the air, stunned to find the night had almost gone.

How long had they kept her there?

In the distance was the road, on the far side of playing fields with a misty shroud hanging over the great white H-shapes of the rugby posts.

She began to run across the playing fields, the fog wet on her face, her bare feet sliding on grass slick with the dawn, and the beautiful buildings of the famous old school rising up black and timeless behind her.

She ran without looking back, expecting to hear their voices at any moment, waiting for the pack to come and run her down and rip her to pieces.

But they did not come.

On the far side of the playing fields there was a tiny stone cottage, as unlikely as a woodman’s house in a fairy tale, but its lights were out and she made no attempt to run towards it. Instead she headed for the road. If she could make it to the road then she would not die tonight.