Her legs are drawn up, arms wrapped tightly around them, head resting on her knees. Daphne is coming, she tells herself. Daphne is coming. It’s nearly over. Her feet ache. When she breathes in, her chest hurts. Every bit of her is heavy with weariness but she dreads sleep for fear of what it might bring. And she’s cold: in the unheated shop she’s frozen, she’s shaking with it. She’s wrapped Judy’s shawl around her feet, which are filthy and probably cut but she hasn’t investigated them properly. She should have asked Daphne to bring socks and shoes, but she forgot. Getting here took forever. Terrified all the time that he’d follow her, she zigzagged her way back into the city through unfamiliar streets, pressing herself into doorways or crouching behind rubbish bins when any car approached. The few pedestrians she encountered, when she finally reached civilisation again, gave her funny looks. Of course they did – walking barefoot in this weather in the dark, her wrap knotted around her waist to keep her ripped jeans closed – but she ignored them.
