‘Tell you what, Mary, I’ll get my claws out of yours if you get your claws out of mine.’

Mary broke free of Dawn’s grasp and lunged forward again with the intention of pounding, scratching and biting Derek McLaverty until he died. Dawn had restrained her just in time, but she was still only an inch from him, breathing wet rage into his ridiculously relaxed face.

‘You want to hit me, Mary?’ he goaded.

The answer was yes.

Several sharp nose-breaths later, Dawn managed to remove Mary from the room.

‘He’s an arse,’ Dawn said, putting her in a taxi, ‘but you won’t win that way. You gotta keep the moral high ground.’

Dawn was being kind, but Mary wanted to bite her too.

24

The key’s not under the mat.

She’d already honed the fantasy several times, and the taxi hadn’t reached the motorway yet.

I’m not wearing my River Island boots, I am not skilled at picking locks, and I do not know for certain how to download a pen drive onto a MacBook. I find myself reading John Paul O’Donnell’s court report. There’s a chance he might be skilled at picking locks. I nip out, buy a disposable mobile, walk somewhere random, and dial his number.

According to the only research Mary had ever managed to get hold of, thirty percent of intrusive thoughts turn into actions. This was the case in relation to the above revenge-fantasy.

‘Can you stop at Tesco, please? I’ll just be a moment.’ She raced in and bought a disposable mobile phone. For the rest of the journey she held her head out the window and hurled insight, consequential thinking and victim empathy to the wind. She felt better, just as the horny Zen abbot said she would.

As arranged, John Paul was waiting at the entrance to the park. She’d asked him to wear his hoodie, and she’d have pinned him as less socially acceptable than her if he’d not said: ‘Fuck’s sake, Mary, you look homeless as fuck. I saw online, like. Are you okay?’

‘I’m fine.’

‘Get rid of the bastard, Mary. I’ll break his legs if I ever meet him, ruining your mouth. I admired your teeth. Women’s Aid’s good I hear, if you need somewhere safe. You want the number? I can totally get hold of it.’

‘The pen drive’s in here,’ she said, showing him the bin. She’d brought rubber gloves, a torch and plastic bags, which she handed to him. ‘I threw a ginger wig in there, so it’ll be somewhere around that.’