‘Someone from school,’ I replied in similarly hushed tones.

‘Your year?’ asked Marlon, his eyebrows raised. ‘Looks a good ten years older than you.’

I couldn’t help a little smile forming on my lips, despite my nerves. I nodded.

‘Nice girl,’ said Marlon, and I bit back a giggle.

Stacey ordered a pint of snakebite each for her and her friend and then turned around, leaning on the bar as if she were in a seventies calendar shoot. Her eyes darted around to see who might be there to impress, and then they settled on me. My heart hit the floor.

She tutted. ‘Oh, look who’s here,’ she said to her friend, and tipped her head towards me. The other woman shrugged, clearly unimpressed.

‘Looks harmless enough, doesn’t she? Like butter wouldn’t melt and all that shite.’

I turned to Marlon like I was deep in conversation with him and wasn’t going to take the bait, but Stacey was too drunk to bother with signals like that.

‘She’s got a secret, though, this one,’ she continued, stabbing a finger through the air in my direction.

I felt sick. I willed Stacey not to tell them with everything I possessed.

‘It’s like a super-power,’ Stacey continued, slurring her ‘s’s together, ‘that she pulls out of the bag when her back’s against the wall. Want to know what it is?’

Stacey turned with an exaggerated movement to her friend, who shrugged, as if the very last thing she was interested in was Leah Allen’s super-power.

Marlon, by contrast, was all ears. ‘Ooh, this should be good,’ he smirked. ‘You didn’t mention that you were superhuman. Kept that under your hat, although it doesn’t surprise me.’

He winked at me, and I would have been delighted if I hadn’t been so worried about what Stacey was going to say next.

‘Ah, well,’ Stacey continued. ‘Leah Allen here thinks that she’s better than every other fucker in this town. She’s got like this voice in her head, right, that’s always telling her that she’s the bee’s fucking knees. That’s right, isn’t it, Leah?’

I dropped my head lower still. I just wanted her to go away, to pick on someone else, although I knew there was no chance of that. It was excruciating, though, just waiting for the axe to fall. Not only was it embarrassing in front of Marlon, but I didn’t want to make life difficult for Clio. She was doing so well here, and I could really mess things up for her by accidentally causing a fight in the bar.

‘But,’ continued Stacey with theatrical exaggeration, ‘it seems that super-powers don’t get passed down because her daughter, right, she’s a proper little slapper.’

Even now, after all these years, Stacey Waters knew exactly which buttons to press to get a response. My head snapped up.