The radio in the car crackled. Like fire. Fiery red hair. Fire-red eyes. Fire that eats away everything and leaves nothing behind.

The policewoman was asking me something again. I could see her lips moving, but couldn’t hear the words. All I heard was ‘Dead’.

“There’s a storm coming,” I told her. I didn’t know why.

The anger in her eyes switched down a notch, and for a second I thought I saw a twinge of pity there. It scared me more than the anger had.

I jumped as the engine turned over and a blast of heat from the front of the car hit me. At the same moment the door beside me flew open and I turned to see Mrs T duck her head down and stare in at me, horror plastered across her face.

“Will you go with her?” the policewoman asked across me.

“En Français!” I shouted, grinning over at Mrs T. She was white as a sheet. The door slammed shut again, and I heard her getting into the front.

The angry policewoman strapped me in. She wasn’t at all gentle. Her mouth was moving again but I lost the words; I didn’t know why they were suddenly so hard to hold on to. The car was moving, but there was no siren. I wanted to ask them to turn it on. What use was a ride in a police car without the siren?

I bit down on my lip as hard as I could. I thought maybe the pain would wake me up. I kept on biting until warm blood filled my mouth and ran down my chin, and I gagged, and then the car raced faster through the night and the siren came on and I clapped my hands and laughed.

They took me straight through to a room at the back of the police station. Someone stuck fiddly little things on my lip to stop the bleeding. There were lots of people in there. The angry one told me who everyone was, but I didn’t remember any of it. I held Mrs T’s hand, and she told me it was going to be all right.

“We’re trying to get hold of your dad,” she said.

“Beth,” I told her. My lip was swollen and it was hard to get the words out. “Please. I need Beth.”