Whimpering like one of the injured animals I treat, I struggle to pull my phone from my pocket in the confined space. It’s Sam.

‘Jenna, I’ve just read your text and—’

‘Help me,’ I garble into the handset. ‘She’s going to kill me.’

‘Jenna? What’s going on? Where are you?’

Amanda drops to her hands and knees and peers in through a knothole. I poke my thumb in her eye as hard as I can and she screams with pain. Her hands slap against the boards trying to find a way in, but she’s the wrong side of the hut.

‘Jenna, please. I just want to talk. You owe me that much at least?’ Amanda says.

‘I’m at Owl Lodge Caravan Park in Newley-on-Sea. Please call the police and an ambulance. Sam? Sam?’ I check my screen but the signal has dropped off again and I don’t know if he heard me.

‘Jenna. Please come out. Let’s talk about this properly. I’m sorry. I really am. I know what I did was wrong but I did it for the right reasons. Please. Don’t tell anyone. For Tom? He doesn’t deserve to be alone. I was trying to protect him. Protect the girls.’

I hesitate. If she wanted me dead she’d have shot me by now. There must be some good in her.

‘Please. Let’s talk about what you’re going to do. You don’t want to tell anyone, do you? It’s Tom who will suffer if I go to prison and you’re fond of him, aren’t you? He’s very fond of you. We both are. Think about Callie’s memory. You don’t want everyone knowing she helped cover up a murder. She saved your life. You wouldn’t be here without her. Without me. You owe us. Surely?’

Callie. I press my hands against my chest and a tear runs down my cheek. I don’t know what to do and I’m so very, very tired.

It’s just a cold.

But my heart is slowing and I know it’s very nearly over.

The hut above me rocks and creaks as Amanda kicks the panels and there’s the sound of splintering and I know I can’t possibly make it out before she gets in, but I summon every last ounce of strength I have left. I have to try.

I push the loose footplate with both hands and crawl through the gap. My body is free, my legs are still inside, when I hit against something solid. I twist my neck and look up. Legs. Amanda’s legs.

She puts both hands under my armpits and pulls, and I scream as I feel myself sliding across the dirt. I fumble around behind me with my hands trying to find something I can hang on to, but years of yoga have made her surprisingly strong. I’m almost out the gap and then I feel it. Something cool and metal. The thing I was kneeling on. A crazy golf club, and as she drags me out into the open, I manage to grasp the handle and tuck the club against my body.

The wind howls as she stands over me. We are both panting hard.

‘Why can’t you promise not to tell anyone?’

I can’t take my eyes off the gun. It bumps against her leg as her hand shakes.

‘Would you believe me if I did promise?’

It seems an age before she speaks. ‘When the girls were small they were having a cushion fight while I cooked dinner. I had told them a million times not to. There wasn’t enough room to swing a cat in our lounge. A vase got smashed. It had belonged to my grandparents and was worth a fortune. I was furious and demanded to know what happened and Callie stepped forward straight away and said “it was me, Mum”. And that’s what she was like. Honest and kind and you… you have her heart. You are the last part of her to live on and I want to trust you but… but you’re not her.’

‘I feel what she felt. The holidays. Coming here with you and Tom when her and Sophie were small. She was so happy.’

‘I thought they’d be happier with more money.’

‘You were happier with more money.’

‘I wasn’t though. Not really. It was a relief, of course. Tom wasn’t well enough to work and I don’t know what we’d have done otherwise. I hadn’t worked for years and even if I could have got a job I couldn’t have paid Sophie’s debt. But I’ve paid the price. The ultimate price, and I can’t go to prison. I really can’t.’

‘I won’t make that promise, Amanda.’ I’m dying anyway. My integrity is the last thing I have left.

‘Please, Jenna. Don’t make me hurt you. I really don’t want to.’

A click.

‘You are making me do this,’ she says.

The gun is cocked.

‘I’m so sorry, Jenna.’

I push myself to kneeling, to standing, and I swing the club. It hits her shoulder and knocks her off balance but I haven’t hit her hard enough and she rights herself and raises the gun.

I grip the handle of the club with two hands this time and somehow I muster the energy to swing it as hard as I can. This time it thwacks against the side of her head. She concertinas to the ground. There’s a sickening crack as her head falls onto a rock.

Silence.

I try to move but my legs don’t seem to work. My knees buckle, and I’m falling, lying on my back, the stars twinkling above me and as the black sky rushes down towards me I wonder whether it will be the last thing I ever see.