Don't ever stop for hitchhikers. It had been drilled into me since I first got my licence. You hear such horror stories. Every time I passed someone on a grass verge or in a service station layby, thumb turned out hopefully, I looked away, eyes fixed on the road ahead, a manner perfected over years of side stepping Big Issue sellers and charity muggers brandishing clipboards and fake smiles.

But this was different. She didn't look more than 16, and it was pouring with rain. I mean you can’t just leave a kid alone like that, anything could happen, any passing weirdo taking their fancy. So I stopped, overshooting the layby slightly, tyres clipping the edge of the curb. And in the rain and the glow of the streetlight, she looked just like Amy.

I opened the passenger window and she leant inside, rain dripping from her hair down the door.

‘I’m going as far as City Hospital, if that’s any use?’

She eyed me up, making a judgment on whether I was a safe bet, safer at least than taking her chances alone on the side of the A44. The hospital pass hanging around my neck must have marked me as safe because she replied ‘Perfect. Thanks’ She got into the passenger seat and tucked her schoolbag down by her feet. ‘This is so good of you. My dad was meant to pick me up, but he didn't show, and my phone died -’

‘- No problem. It's a horrible night to be out.’

I turned the heater dial to blast some air on the windscreen which was fogging up. The windscreen wipers squeaked rhythmically. She eyed my cigarettes in the centre console and asked if I minded if she smoked. ‘Light one for me too’ I said, passing her the cigarette packet, feeling generous. She fumbled in her pocket for a lighter, and I watched her sidelong as she lit two cigarettes at once before passing one to me. I opened my window a fraction, the rain slicing through the small gap and hitting my face.

Maybe it was cigarette, or maybe just that I'm the kind of person that people can't help but talk to, but she wouldn't shut up. About school, how she was going to fail her exams for sure, how her mum had just had another baby that cried all the time, how her stepdad had painted the kitchen avocado green and her mum hadn't spoken to him for a week. She just went on and on, all the time fingering a tiny gold angel on a chain around her neck. She was so like Amy that I struggled to stay focused on the road. Picking her up had been a bad idea. What was I thinking?

She was so busy chattering that she paid no attention when I pulled off the busy main road, taking smaller and quieter roads with each turn. I pulled the car into a picnic area, long since closed for the winter, and killed the engine. She looked at me, confusion instantly replaced by fear. Like Amy before her, and the others since, she tried the door, and like all that came before her, discovered it locked. She flinched as I reached to touch the gold angel around her neck. ‘When will you kids ever learn’ I whispered, unable to resist ‘not to accept lifts from strangers?’