I make excuses to leave. I have to get back to Kennington, I say, and I don’t want to be walking too late. James offers to walk me, but I decline. “I don’t bite!” he says. “No, it’s okay, I have to be up early tomorrow too,” I say.

I say goodbye to everyone, apart from Ben, who is asleep on a beanbag. Anju gives me her number, and tells me to get in touch. And then I slip out.

I’m just a few steps down the corridor when Shakti comes out of The Place and calls after me to wait. “Hey!” she says. “One moment.” She half-jogs-half-walks down the hall. “Hey,” she says again.

“Oh, hey. Thanks for tonight,” I say.

“It’s okay,” she says. “About the Otter, though . . .” While everyone had eaten, I had told them all about my first few days, about being put in the puppet theater, and then about the bottles I had to clean and hangers I had to add pads to. I didn’t tell them about the puppet I’d stolen, or the books, or about Heather, or Gideon watching from the shadows, and standing on the steps—me shuffling past him, his hand brushing my body, then grabbing at it. Shakti, it turned out, had interned at the Otter a couple of months ago, and had left early. Just as with her artwork, the conversation moved on before I could ask why. “Just be careful,” she says now.

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“Just, watch out for Gideon. He’s a bit of a creep.” I feel my breath catch in my throat, and my skin prickle, as though Gideon is somehow here, in the shadows in this corridor.

“Okay,” I say, nodding. “Thank you.” I step into a strip of warm light that’s coming from the open door of The Place. Then Shakti leans in and gives me a hug. Her body is warm. “Wow, you’re cold,” she says.

Downstairs, I open the front door and gate and close them both loudly, in case anyone is listening for the sound of my leaving the building. Then, I go to my studio, opening and closing the door as quietly as possible.

The room has quite a strange smell to it, a kind of musty, muddy smell, iron and the beginnings of rot. The drained duck carcass is in the sink where I left it. Its neck is bent over the edge of the sink and its head hangs out. Its eyes are open, and they seem to watch me. The mirror on the wall has some small splatters of blood on it.