She stiffly exits the car, closing the door after her. She doesn’t bother locking it. She doesn’t know what she’s doing, where she’s going. She just follows the pedestrian signs to ‘Exit and Shops’ then pushes open the heavy swing doors that lead into the bright, white, clean shopping centre. A change in air pressure, the echoing sound of music around her.

Her body doesn’t feel as though it’s under her control, and she’s freezing all over despite the heat pumping through the mall. There’s a coffee kiosk up ahead with tables and chairs ranged around it, interspersed with tall palms and frond-like plants. It’s almost full – people coming and going, getting their caffeine fixes. But there are also a few women chatting leisurely and sipping their lattes. A water feature trickles and bubbles down one side of the café, and on the other side is a children’s play area. The sound of running water makes Catriona need the loo. She glances around for a bathroom, spots a sign and heads towards it.

Inside a cubicle, she relieves herself and then washes her hands under a scalding tap. She tries to get some of the mud off. The stuff is caked beneath her fingernails, and after a few half-hearted attempt to rinse it away, she gives up. The mirror reveals an ashen face, red-rimmed eyes and cheeks smeared with brown dirt. It’s a face that is at once recognisable and yet wholly unfamiliar. She washes off the streaks of mud, uses a paper towel to wipe it dry, and leaves the bathroom.

Back under the strip-light glare of the shopping centre, she heads to the coffee kiosk, the scent of cinnamon and freshly brewed coffee mingling with the smell of recycled mall air. Normally Catriona would specify what coffee she would like – a skinny mocha something or other with a flavoured syrup and all that crap – but after standing in line for what seems like forever, her mind has gone blank.

‘Coffee please,’ she croaks.

‘Any particular one? Americano? Flat white?’ the girls asks.

‘Uh, just a white coffee,’ Catriona replies. She waits at the other end of the counter while another girl prepares it. Again, she’s aware of some kind of upbeat music being piped over the speakers, but it’s muffled like it’s underwater. Is that because the speaker system is faulty? Or could there be something wrong with her hearing? Either way, it doesn’t matter.