In the old days, buses and trains used to run until all hours. Now, if you were in Severn Sands and didn’t have a car you were, as John Morahan liked to say, buggered. Marnie did have a car, an old Ford estate, but it was on its last legs, held together by rust and duct tape. She worried about it giving up the ghost and only drove when she had no alternative. If Lucy had missed the bus, then Marnie would have to walk home, collect the Ford and drive into Bristol to pick her up. Lucy would be alone at the school in the dark, and what if the car broke down en route? What then?

Marnie stepped from one foot to the other, her feet cold despite two pairs of socks and her stout boots, her breath clouding in front of her, a knitted hat pulled down close over her bare head. Tessy looked up, checking in, concerned, and Marnie smiled to convey that she was all right.

A seagull called mournfully from the sign at the entrance to the service station, glowing from the light within. Marnie looked for the bus, her eyes straining to see along the road. A blue VW rounded the corner, slowed and turned into the service station. It used to be Mrs deVillars’ car, but her nurse, Zoe, used it now. The woman parked and climbed out, hurried across the concourse, light on her feet. She was dark-skinned, large-boned, tall with short, bleached hair. She had a daughter, Maya, who went to the same school as Lucy and the two girls had become friendly.

Two minutes later the bus chugged round the corner. The driver nodded to Marnie as she pulled up at the stop and opened the doors. Lucy thanked the driver and climbed down, a thin adolescent in black tights, a knee-length skirt and a coat, swamped by her uniform. Her feet, in their big clumpy shoes, seemed too big for her body. Marnie’s heart clenched: Lucy was a tough little thing, but still she was so vulnerable. Behind her was Maya; her socks around her ankles, the buttons on her coat fastened in the wrong holes, the paper stick of a chew-lollipop sticking out of the corner of her mouth.

Lucy looked tired, but she always looked tired in winter. The season didn’t suit her and school wore her out. She never complained, but she found it an ordeal. Like her mother, she would rather be in the open air, in the company of animals. In her heart, Marnie would have liked to take Lucy out of school and let her run free at home. Only if she did that, Lucy might never escape Severn Sands. She might be stuck for ever, like Marnie.