Unfortunately, I’d not quite believed in my own strength, so hadn’t braced my stance for the sudden decrease in tension when Lucy let go. I stumbled back, scraping my shoulder blades against something sharp, and jabbing the back of my knee into a metal spike.

I automatically bent double to clutch my leg, the fork clattering to the ground. If I was some kick-ass heroine from a film I’d have ignored the agonising pain now shooting up my leg like flames. But I wasn’t, I was a clueless, frightened wimp, and I was too exhausted and too traumatised to think any more.

Ignoring the fork, Lucy simply threw herself at me, and we both toppled over, smacking onto the floor side by side with groans and grunts. Hands clawed for my neck, my eyes, ripping out a chunk of my hair. Her feet scrabbled for purchase, those stupid sandals scraping down my shins.

And then a powerful beam of light suddenly appeared from the direction of the door.

A cry of horror, in a voice that instantly made me feel safe.

Lucy jerked, momentarily startled by the intruder.

Darkness.

Shattering pain.

Nothing.

36

I woke up in a hospital bed.

My first thought was, ‘Ow!’

I must have said it out loud, because Becky jerked awake from where she’d clearly been snoozing in the chair beside me. Taking a moment to orientate herself, she spotted that I was also awake, and quickly shuffled the chair up close enough to take hold of my hand.

‘Eleanor. How are you feeling?’

I tried to answer, not that I knew what to say, but my throat was hoarse and dry, so instead what came out was an ugly croak.

‘Here.’ She offered me a sip of water from a paper straw, smoothing my hair back from my face after I plopped back onto the pillow, finding that lifting my head up an inch for three seconds was about as much as I could manage.

‘Okay?’ She peered at me, her expression a mixture of concern, compassion and relief.

I nodded. Clearly I was not okay, but I thought she probably knew more about that than I did.

‘What happened?’ I rasped.

‘It was Lucy. Do you remember? You were in the old cider store.’

‘How?’ I flicked my eyes around the room, hoping she’d understand my question.

‘How did you get here?’ Becky gave the barest of smiles. ‘Daniel heard you scream. After you left, there was a whole big kerfuffle with Nora. She was ranting on about the retreat. Daniel told her to leave, and eventually while the band got going, he and Alice called a taxi to drive her to her hotel. It was pretty clear that she’d lost it, though.

‘And then I remembered about the knife in the arbour, so I called Brenda and left a message, and tried to find Daniel to tell him, but he was putting Hope to bed, so that took me a while, and people kept wanting to stop and talk to me, ask if I was okay, if you were okay. I ended up yelling at DJ Vapes to leave me alone so I could try to find out. So,’ she paused to take a deep breath, ‘I eventually found Daniel, once Hope was in bed and Billie and Rob were babysitting. Once I’d managed to get him alone and explain, and then we’d found Luke and a couple of other guys to help search for you, Brenda had called back and said she was on her way. But we couldn’t find you anywhere. You weren’t answering your phone. The band were winding down, so we asked more people to help, but a lot of them assumed you’d simply gone off on your own. To be honest, we did too. If we’d seriously thought… maybe we would have looked faster.’