Lower-sixth-formers Kirsty Ryan and Layla Riddock were less selective. They laughed openly at Steve but sometimes went into his shed with him after school. And what did slobbery Steve give them in return? Nobody knew, but it was rumoured that he could get actual cocaine for anyone who offered that kind of payment.

School life. Sex and drugs and-

Jane saw that the blinds were down over the window in the shed.

There was absolutely no reason why a groundsman’s hut should have blinds at all, but every window in the school was fitted with the same type, black and rubbery, so that educational videos could be shown at any time or the Net consulted.

There was no TV in here, obviously, no computer. The lowered blinds could only mean one thing: with the English Language GCSE not half an hour over, slobbery Steve was in there doing business.

You couldn’t get away from it, could you? Jane shook her head wearily and was about to turn back across the field when the wooden door of the shed swung open.

She stiffened. The sun-flooded playing fields stretched away on three sides: everywhere to run, nowhere to hide.

‘Well, come on,’ a voice drawled from inside. ‘Don’t hang around.’

Jane didn’t move. She imagined pills spread across Steve’s workbench — or maybe some really desperate sixth-former. Jane felt cocooned in heat and a sense of unreality.

She blinked.

Layla Riddock, large and ripe, stood there in the doorway of Steve’s hut — in her microskirt, blouse open to the top of her bra. Like a hooker in the entrance to an alleyway.