‘Let’s play a game while we wait to go home.’ She led her sisters over to the mattress and they settled down. Carly wiped her eyes with her sleeve. ‘We each have to name something in the room alphabetically. You start, Leah.’

‘Animal.’

‘There isn’t an animal!’ Marie said.

‘There’s a bear.’ Leah was cuddling the soft toy from the box.

‘If you can have that, I’ll have A teddy for my A,’ Marie said. ‘Carly? Your turn.’

‘Annoying sisters,’ Carly said but they all knew she didn’t mean it.

‘Now. B. Umm… bed! Kind of.’ Marie patted the mattress.

‘Broken glass,’ Carly offered.

‘Bars,’ Leah said flatly and Carly clapped her hands, drawing her sister’s gaze away from the window.

‘My turn to go first, C.’ Carly looked around the room. ‘This is harder.’

‘Not for me!’ Marie shouted. ‘Carly!’

Carly rolled her eyes. ‘Okay, I’m going for carpet.’

‘There isn’t a carpet!’ Marie shoved Carly.

‘There’s a dust carpet!’

‘That would be D then, silly. Pick something else.’ Marie’s eight-year-old logic was often skewed. How she rationalized things was often a source of amusement at home.

‘Okay then… crisps. Your turn, Leah.’

‘Clown.’ Leah began to cry. ‘I don’t like that clown, Carly. He’s watching us.’

They all stared at the graffiti on the back of the door. The clown’s eyes did seem to be fixed on them, his stretched mouth laughing.

‘I don’t want to play any more.’ The brief moment of lightness was gone.

‘Do you want some crisps?’ Carly remembered she hadn’t given the girls their tea. She rubbed her fingers together, still feeling the paper of the £10 note smooth against her skin, almost tasting chips drenched with salt and vinegar.

‘I’m not hungry.’ Leah lay on her side and began to suck her thumb. She hadn’t done that since she was three.

Time dragged. It felt like days since Carly had sat on her back step after school and felt the heat of the sun on her skin. The room was chilly with its bare walls and floors. Outside the last burst of sun streaked the sky orange as it began to dip, and Carly knew they’d grow even colder. One blanket wasn’t enough for them all.

Leah hugged her knees to her chest. Carly could see the goosebumps on her arms.

Marie sat cross-legged, spine rigid, staring at the door that never opened. Carly shuddered. That clown gave her the creeps too.

‘Come on.’ She stood and stretched out a hand to each sister. ‘Let’s warm up.’

‘How?’ Marie asked but she was already standing.

Carly raised her arm above her head and mimed spinning a lasso – ‘5, 6, 7, 8’ – the way she should have done in the kitchen earlier that day.

Tentative at first, the girls’ singing grew louder, stronger, as their feet shuffled across the concrete, hands on their hips. Momentarily it seemed to Carly they could have been somewhere else. Back at home with Bruno barking and jumping up, doing his own dog dance. Carly’s voice faltered as she swallowed down a hard lump that rose in her throat as she wondered what might have happened if she hadn’t been such a bitch earlier and had danced with the twins when the song had come on the radio. That four-minute delay might have made all the difference. The men might have given up searching for someone to take. Or it could be different girls trapped here right now. Instantly, Carly felt like a cow for wishing this on somebody else and she pushed away the part of her that whispered better anyone else than you.