Marnie’s sheets were greasy and crumpled. The beds in the caretaker’s cottage hadn’t been changed in ages. Marnie knew sheets and pillowcases were supposed to be laundered once a week, she knew the clean laundry should be dried on the line, then ironed and folded onto the top shelf of the airing cupboard at the top of the stairs. She knew how the washing machine worked, but there was no detergent in the box that sat at the side of the machine. It was an industrial-sized box, one of those her father ordered to stock the dispensers in the laundry room at the holiday park. It was the same box that had been in use when Denise died and it was still there, with its plastic scoop for measuring the detergent at its base, but there was no washing powder left. There hadn’t been any for weeks and Marnie couldn’t bring herself to mention this to John because no matter how she framed the sentence in her mind it sounded like a criticism. They had never run out of soap powder before, and if she raised the subject it would be like saying: ‘Mummy isn’t here and nothing is as it should be.’ So she said nothing, and she slept on sheets that smelled musty. She was used to them now.

That morning, when Marnie went downstairs, her father wasn’t there but Trip was lying on the kitchen floor panting. His water bowl was empty. Marnie filled it for him and then she looked for something to eat, but there was nothing she wanted and the freezer door was frozen shut because nobody had defrosted it so she couldn’t check to see if there were any ice cubes for her throat. She drank some tap water from a cup and picked a bottle of aspirin from the kitchen window ledge, opened it, shook out its contents. Only two tablets were left. She put them in her mouth and sucked them, letting them dissolve on her tongue. Then she went upstairs, changed into her shorts and T-shirt and put on her daps.

Taking Trip with her, she crossed the road, went into Channel View holiday park. It was busy. The heat drew more people in during the summer, especially to the funfair. Probably they thought the rides might cool them down. Even at 10 a.m. it was boiling hot and booming with noise, people everywhere, more than normal. Marnie drifted round the park. She sat in the kiosk for an hour, taking money, to give one of the travelling men a break. Or perhaps it was Will who had asked her to cover for him. She couldn’t remember. Her father materialised, he didn’t say where he’d been. He told Marnie she looked poorly.

‘Go home,’ he’d said, ‘get out of the sun.’ He whistled to Trip. ‘You stay with me, TH.’