As her BMX left the ramp, the angle was all wrong and watching the girl and her bike fly through the air, Hannah held her breath, seeing the accident unfold.

When Tash finally landed, it was on her bum and the bike was on top of her.

Rosie started crying at that point, while Hannah rushed over, terrified that Tash had badly hurt herself. Her friend’s face was pale and her knee bloody, but she managed to give Rosie and Hannah the thumbs up.

Although she was limping as she wheeled her broken BMX out of the building site, Tash was more concerned about the telling-off she was going to get from her parents than the fact she had hurt herself.

‘My dad’s going to kill me. He’s probably going to make me stay home for the rest of the summer.’

‘I’m sure he won’t,’ Hannah reasoned. ‘Not when he sees you’ve hurt yourself.’

‘You don’t know my dad.’ Tash rolled her eyes dramatically.

Hannah did and she knew that Mr Hogan could be strict. But not about something like this, surely? ‘Don’t tell him we were on the building site. You can pretend you were just riding your bike down the road and fell off. We’ll cover for you, won’t we, Rosie?’

Still sniffing away tears, Rosie nodded. ‘I won’t say where we were.’

She was the youngest of the group and tended to go along with what the others wanted. When she had first started hanging around with Hannah, Tash, and Lauren, she had grated on their nerves, but over time, Hannah and Tash had softened towards her. Lauren still had her moments, but mostly they protected her like a sister.

‘Thanks, but he’s still going to kill me for being clumsy enough to fall off my bike.’ Tash was determined this wasn’t going to end positively and started citing examples of how unreasonable her dad could be. She was interrupted by the sound of an engine approaching from behind and the three girls stepped to the side of the road to let the vehicle pass.

Instead it slowed, pulling up alongside them.

The window was already down, probably because of the warm afternoon, a face they all recognised smiling at them from the driver’s seat.

Hannah knew Eileen Wickham. They all did. She had moved to the area a couple of years back with her son, Bill, who was two years above the girls at school, and she was a familiar face around the village.

‘Hello, Mrs Wickham,’ Hannah greeted her, smiling shyly at Bill, who was sitting in the passenger seat of the pick-up. He was one of the more popular kids at school and their paths rarely crossed. Truth was, she was a little intimidated by him.

He didn’t smile back. If anything, seeming a little annoyed that his mother had stopped.