I wonder if he saw me from his window, walking down the road with Simon. I wonder if he noticed I’m wearing the pink pencil skirt, even though it’s freezing bloody cold. I wonder if he noticed I walked behind Simon, so I didn’t have to look at his face, so he couldn’t look at me. I wonder if he followed us, his long legs carefully stepping in the places my slip-ons had been, ducking behind walls and hedges in case I looked back (although I never did).

‘I’m going for a walk.’

Simon lets out a breathy ha. ‘I don’t think you should go anywhere. It’ll be dark soon.’

I touch him then. I let my fingers fall over his hand, and it’s smoother than I expect. ‘I won’t be long.’

He lowers his binoculars, blinks at my hand on his wrist. ‘OK. But I’ll be watching you, silly girl.’

I pick my way through tangled brambles and spiky holly leaves. Mud gathers around my shoes as I stand on the edge of the pool, looking out over the water. I toss my hair back and open my eyes wide. I hang on to a branch and lean over the water, looking for him. He might be hiding behind a trunk, or crouching behind some brambles. He might be watching me, like he did that day on Shotton Hill.

My hand, in its white fingerless glove, starts to freeze on the branch.

Then I hear that sound again. A high-pitched ah-ah-ah. I look all around for a flash of his green parka. Nothing. Smoke from the power station chimneys looks like snow clouds above me.

Perhaps it’s a bird.

But it gets louder, and seems human.

I let go of the branch. I have to grab a bramble to stop myself sliding down the bank and into the pool. Tiny thorns stick through my fingerless glove and into my skin. And then I remember coming here years before, slipping on the mud, grabbing a bramble to steady myself and tearing my palm on the thorns. A line of blood, edged by a flap of limp skin, pumped to the surface. Dad was already in the pool. I stepped forward into the water, and as I went deeper, the slime squeezed up between my toes. I went down. The cold water lapped underneath me – that was a shock, but a good one, I remember. The water licked me right along the place where I pee. I forgot the pain of my torn hand as the pool took me in. When Dad swam over and lifted me I felt like he could balance me on one outstretched palm.

If he was here, he’d tell me to look after myself. To take care. But those aren’t things you can do by yourself. You need someone else to do those things.

Ah-ah-ah.

Then I see someone.

Ah-ah-ah.