This particular hostel sat on the end of a terraced street in Basildon. An ugly red-brick building, it hunkered behind a metal fence intended to help it blend in on the residential street, but which only succeeded in making it look even more of an eyesore.

When Sasha arrived, the fierce late afternoon heat smothering her as soon as her Spider came to a stop, Lolly was locking up her own car. Travelling north to Colchester, then back to Southend and now to Basildon, Sasha had clocked up a fair few miles already this afternoon, and she still had to drive to the posh hotel to meet Kev. She was chomping at the bit to start her night of luxury and romance, after what had been a long and difficult week, but she worried whether it was feasible for her to get away.

They stood at the door of the hostel, beneath the black bulb of the CCTV camera, waiting to be buzzed in. When the door unlocked with a heavy click, they let themselves into a bare hallway with dirty beige walls, given an even more sour aspect by the glare of fluorescent strip lighting. A laminated sign taped to the inside of the door instructed visitors to ensure it was shut properly at all times. And there were other notices on the walls, curling public information posters that warned against STDs, drug-taking and alcohol abuse. Sasha heard laughter coming from a front room, the chatter of daytime TV. One of the key workers, a large middle-aged black woman, introduced herself as Deborah Franks and got them to sign in.

‘You’ve very neat handwriting,’ she observed when Sasha handed back the pen. ‘I understand you’re here about Rachel Weston.’

‘That’s right.’ Sasha rolled her shoulders to try to circulate some air beneath her shirt and jacket. It was stifling in the house; for some mad reason, the radiators in the hallway were warm. She took out her notebook to check the dates. ‘I understand she stayed here following her release from HMP Bronzefield two years ago.’

‘We get a lot of women passing through here.’ Deborah took them into a tiny, windowless office where there was just enough room for a desk with an old computer, a noisy hard drive beneath it, and a towering stack of files. ‘But I do remember Rachel. I was her key worker.’

Sasha’s ears pricked up. ‘Oh?’

‘Rachel was a very… feisty lady.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘She was older than a lot of the women who pass through this hostel, in her late fifties or early sixties, I can’t remember off the top of my head.’

‘She was fifty-nine when she was released from prison,’ said Sasha, ‘which would make her sixty-one years old now.’