‘Stupid cow. Can’t take a joke,’ he insisted when she didn’t retaliate.

Keeping her gaze forward, she neither rushed nor slowed down.

‘Think you’re better than us, do—’

His hand was on her right buttock for no more than a second before she’d grabbed it by the wrist, wheeled around, and dug her thumbnail hard and deep into the half-moon lunula at the base of his index fingernail. Connie released him as his scream hit the air, and he leapt backwards, clutching his hand.

‘She bloody tasered me or something. Shit.’ He clutched his hand to his stomach, eyes watering.

Connie turned and stood her ground.

‘The pain’s already gone,’ she said. ‘It only lasts while the pressure’s on. You assaulted me and I’m entitled to defend myself. I’m going to walk up the road now, and none of you should follow me. I have a tendency to overreact when someone touches me. Next time, the injury won’t be so transient.’

There was a group shuffling and some muffled swearing, but no one seemed keen to take her on. Connie nodded, turned and continued towards Gayfield Street. She was expected in the gardens at Gayfield Square imminently, and she didn’t want to keep the man waiting.

She left at a regular pace. Running would have been a mistake. Showing any level of fear always was. Predatory men were no different than mountain lions – that was how it had been explained to her in the self-defence classes she’d attended religiously in her early twenties. A mountain lion could be fooled into thinking you weren’t lunch if you stood your ground, made yourself look big and stared it down. Turn away, run, show weakness, and you were a walking entrée. Ordinary testosterone-fuelled men were rarely intimidating to her now, though. Drunk idiots threw punches. Icy-cold restraint was much harder to fight.

Connie turned a corner and realised that the word ‘gardens’ after the name Gayfield was something of an overstatement. The grass had withered in the exceptional heat. A couple of forlorn benches were available as seating, and there were trees around the edge of the flora that had been preserved in the midst of the rectangle of buildings, but that was it. Cars were parked all around the edge, and there wasn’t a square yard that escaped being overlooked by some building or other. It wasn’t somewhere she could feel relaxed as she read a book on a blanket, or picnicked with a friend. It was a walk-through more than a venue to stop and smell the roses.

‘Are you waiting for someone?’ a man asked.

He stood a short distance behind her, taller than her by a head at well over six feet.

‘Did you know it was me, or do you randomly walk up to women at night and say that, because it’s likely to get you in trouble?’