Copyright 2025 Blackwych Books

All Rights Reserved

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, events, entities and places are either products of the author's imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual people, businesses, entities or events is entirely coincidental.

Kindle edition

First published in January 2025

by Blackwych Books, London

Tom Linton is a successful author but he's got a problem: as he struggles with his latest novel, he can no longer deny that something's wrong with his mind. He keeps forgetting names, places and even parts of his own day. His parents both had with dementia and now Tom's terrified that he's going to suffer the same fate.

In a desperate attempt to put everything right and get his novel back on track, Tom heads to his remote holiday home deep in the forest. As soon as he arrives, however, he finds that nothing is quite what it seems. Strange noises trouble him as he tries to sleep and terrifying visions haunt his days. And when his editor shows up to discuss his latest manuscript, she offers devastating news: even Tom's writing is starting to show signs of problems.

Determined to fight, Tom tries to find out what's really going on in his home. But as he gets closer to the source of the noises, is he prepared to face the most horrifying truth of all? And will the nightmare improve his writing or shatter his mind completely?

Typo is a psychological horror novel about a man facing his darkest personal demons, and about all the different ways people fight to survive.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Five

Chapter Forty-Six

Chapter Forty-Seven

Chapter Forty-Eight

Chapter Forty-Nine

Chapter Fifty

Chapter Fifty-One

Chapter Fifty-Two

Epilogue

Typo

Chapter One

Damn it, what else did I forget?

As the car bumps along the rough gravel road, I see the house coming into view up ahead and my spirits lift. After a few days in London I always feel as if I'm coming home when I get here; London might have been wild and exciting when I was a young wannabe writer, but as a mid-forties established name I've got better things to do than chase slightly-too-young girls who just want to get some likes for an Insta post. Whatever the hell Insta is, anyway.

I just wish I hadn't forgotten my other laptop.

After bringing the car to a halt, I cut the engine and climb out of the vehicle. Already the air out here smells so much fresher than any of the soot-infested crap that got into my lungs in London. I take a moment to somewhat pretentiously breathe in and out very deeply, and then I slam the car door shut with a renewed sense of purpose. Once that's done I wait again, enjoying the sound of peace and quiet as I tell myself that this time I won't allow myself any distractions. Already, after just a scattering of seconds, I feel so much better.

Reaching into my pocket, I'm surprised to find some kind of wire in there. I pull it out and find that it's quite sharp. I have no idea where this stupid stuff came from, so I head over to the bin and throw the wire inside before hurrying to the house with a renewed sense of purpose. I should have come up here sooner, but at least I'm here now.

And this time I'm finishing that damn book, even if it's the last thing I ever write.

Chapter Two

As soon as I'm inside, I head to the kitchen and pull the fridge open. I'm immediately confronted by a foul stench, and I sigh as I see that I left an open carton of milk behind.

Taking the carton out, I carry it to the sink and tip it onto its side. Some of the milk immediately runs out, but most of it's a little too solid and I have to bang the carton's side before the sludgy mess finally drops into the plughole. I turn the tap on and run some hot water, and fortunately the stink is already fading. I still wait about half a minute longer than I probably need to before giving the carton one last swill and turning the tap off.

A moment later, after setting the carton down, I turn and head to the table. I reach out to grab the bags of shopping I picked up on the way here, and then I stop dead in my tracks.

There's nothing on the table.

I stare at the empty space for a few seconds before looking at the window. I can see my car out there and I'm certain I brought the shopping inside, but after a moment that certainty begins to fade. I opened the boot, I'm sure of that, but then...

Still watching the car outside, I start to seriously doubt myself. Did I go to the boot, or did I just come straight inside? Wasn't there some kind of fuss with wire in my pocket?

As those questions flit through my mind I feel a buzzing sensation in my pocket. I pull my phone out and immediately see that my delightful agent Stacy is trying to get through.

“Not right now,” I mutter, setting the phone aside before retracing my steps and heading back to the front door. The last thing I need right now is Stacy's screeching voice in my ear, even if I know I'm going to have to talk to her eventually.

Behind me, as I step outside, the phone is still ringing.

“Leave me alone,” I say out loud, mostly for dramatic effect, as I head to the rear of the car and fumble to get the boot open. “I know what I'm doing. There's no need to keep nagging at me all the time like I'm some kind of first -”

Suddenly I freeze again as I see that the boot is empty. I know I picked some things up on the way here and I know I put them in here, but for a few seconds I'm utterly confused. I stare into the boot like some kind of moron who expects everything to magically appear for him, and then I glance back at the house and spot two plastic bags sitting on the porch next to the front door.

Sighing a smile of relief, I realize that I must have set the bags down while I was unlocking the front door, and then I forgot and just marched straight inside.

“Idiot,” I say, slamming the boot shut as relief turns to a faint, simmering sense of concern.

How many times have I forgotten little things today? Not to mention the moments when I've used the wrong words for things. As I march back past the car and pick up the plastic bags, I tell myself that I've just been stressed lately and that all the red wine at various publishing events really didn't help. At the same time I know that this forgetfulness has been slowly creeping up on me lately and that excessive booze can't really explain the whole thing. Especially with my family history.

I push the front door open and step back into the hallway, carrying one bag in each hand, and then I walk through to the kitchen.

“You're absolutely fine,” I say out loud, which is my usual way of trying to hammer home a point. “You always get like this when you've got a book to finish.”

Ain't that the truth? I'm just getting a little scatterbrained, that's all. I'll be fine once this book is done.

Setting the bags on the counter, I'm about to start unpacking when I spot an empty milk carton next to the sink. I furrow my brow, wondering whether I left that out the other day before I headed to London, but I can see a small amount of water at the bottom of the bottle and I'm certain that I left the place spotless.

Walking around the counter, I pick the carton up and turn it around, but then – as I happen to glance down at the sink – I remember everything.

The milk was in the fridge when I arrived and I had to empty it out, and it had gone off and the smell was pretty gross.

Relieved, but slightly concerned by the fact that I forgot in the first place, I set the carton back down before starting to unpack the bags. At least this is a fairly straightforward process and I soon have everything sorted on the various shelves. There's something very satisfying about the task of stocking up for a week here at the house and I tell myself that I won't have to have any conversations with anyone unless I specifically seek them out.

Which, let's be honest, I almost never do.

Realizing that the place is a little too quiet, I switch on the radio over on the breakfast bench, immediately filling the kitchen with the sound of old 90s songs. Lately I've been really enjoying getting into some of the bands from my younger days; on the drive here I was listening non-stop to Pavement and Smashing Pumpkins, and now I'm starting to wonder whether it's time to break out some Placebo.

Smiling, and a little shocked that the 90s are now more than two decades in the past, I carry a fresh carton of milk across the kitchen and set it into the fridge, before swinging the door shut and turning around to -

In that moment I stop dead in my tracks as I hear a distant but quite loud thud echoing out from somewhere else in the house.

The music continues to play, but I'm far more interested in anything else that might be happening here. I walk over to the radio and switch it off, and now the house returns to its previous state of absolute silence.

I can see the trees blowing outside in a gentle breeze, but any rustling sound is kept out by the windows.

For the next minute, perhaps minute and a half, I simply stand at the counter and wait in case the thud returns. I spend a lot of time at this house and I'm very much accustomed to the idea that once I step through that front door, I'm completely alone. Hell, over the years I've pretty much never invited anyone here apart from the odd girlfriend, and there's a very good reason for that: this house is my sanctuary, my place away from the world, my bolthole whenever I need to shut everything else out and just focus on writing.

At the risk of sounding pretentious, the house is my hiding place. There's a reason why the last girlfriend I brought here was... what, five years ago?

Longer?

Finally, satisfied that the thud was just some brief random misunderstanding that likely will never be explained, I slowly take the empty plastic bags and scrunch them up before opening a nearby cupboard door and adding the bags to the bundle I need to recycle at some point. As I'm doing that, however, I notice that one of the tiles on the floor is chipped and I swear I don't remember how that could possibly have happened.

And the door's loose, too.

I swing the cupboard door a couple of times and find that the top hinge is slightly loose. There's even a tiny crack on the inside, almost as if somebody pulled on the door at some point. I might clatter around the house from time to time, but I'm fairly certain that I would have noticed if I'd ever done this much damage. I run a fingertip against the crack and make a mental note to find some way to fix it, and then I head back to the counter just as my phone starts ringing again.

I see the same name as before on the screen.

“Leave me alone, Stacy,” I say under my breath, turning the phone over before slipping my coat off as I walk through to the hallway. “I specifically came here to avoid any kind of distraction.”

Chapter Three

Opera music rings out from the speakers as I lean back in my favorite chair with a glass of red wine in my right hand.

I'd never claim to be some kind of opera expert, and I'm certainly not a snob, but there's something about a piece of music like Vissi d'arte that just makes my soul soar. In fact, I refuse to believe that anyone could possibly listen to this aria without experiencing a profound sense of connection to the suffering and doubt contained in Puccini's glorious work. And while I'm sure that a true connoisseur would be able to pick out some far less known performances, this particular rendition by Maria Callas is the one that truly touches my heart every time.

In fact, this is always the first piece of music that I listen to whenever I come to the house. It always reminds me of the first time I went to the opera in London with -

Staring at the books in the opposite shelf, I suddenly realize that I can't remember her name.

It must have been twenty years ago and I was a young man navigating my life in London, and I was dating that dark-haired girl who worked in a bookshop near London Bridge. I saved up for months just so that I could get us tickets to see a proper opera, and I remember being so surprised by how much I enjoyed my very first show. I'd read up about Tosca, of course, so I knew the story already, but I was entranced by every aspect of the production. Unfortunately my date for the occasion wasn't quite so enamored and I remember worrying that she might excuse herself and leave at one of the intervals. She didn't, and we continued to date for a few more months but now...

Now I suddenly can't remember her name.

Still staring at the books, I try to think about her in other contexts. We spent most of our time at either her flat or my own, although we sometimes went to the pubs in Soho or Covent Garden. She was absolutely gorgeous and the sex was great, and I remember thinking for a brief moment that we might actually have a future together. She was never very supportive of my career, however, and she was always urging me to get what she lovingly described as a 'proper job'. Eventually she broke up with me so she could date – and eventually marry – a guy who worked in data admin, and I have to admit that I enjoyed bumping into her a couple of years later after my first novel became such a hit.

The look in her eyes, when she realized that she should have had faith in me, was exquisite. I know I shouldn't enjoy such things but everyone's allowed a little schadenfreude now and again. She tried to strike up a conversation but I insisted – truthfully – that I was too busy to stop. Later, when she tried to add me on social media, I ignored her requests.

But what the hell was her name?

As the seconds pass, I find myself starting to panic a little. Sure, I can't be expected to remember every single detail from my forty-five years on this planet, but I sure as hell should remember that girlfriend's name. After all, I even went to the Cotswolds once to meet her parents and every so often over the years I've looked her up online to see how her life's going.

Still holding my glass of wine, I lean forward in the chair as the aria reaches its conclusion.

What the fuck was that girl's name?

Suddenly a high-pitched buzzing sound fills the air, reaching a peak of intensity in a matter of seconds and quickly hurting my right ear. I let out a gasp and instinctively turn away, but already the sound has gone and the recording has also ended, leaving me sitting once again in silence.

“What the fuck was that?” I mutter, touching my ear as I turn and look round in both directions. “What the hell's going on with me tonight?”

Chapter Four

A couple of hours later, once I've finished the best part of a bottle and a half of wine, I stumble into the bathroom and pull the cord to switch the light on, and then I make my way to the sink and look at my own face in the mirror.

“Hey,” I say, offering a brief and unconvincing smile as I put my hands on the sink's sides for support. “Long time no see. How's that new book of yours coming along?”

I wait, but of course my reflection fails to come up with an answer.

“It's shit, that's what it is,” I continue. “It's the worst thing you've ever written. No, it's even worse than that, it's the worst thing anyone has ever written. Anyone who considers themselves to be a pro, that is.”

Again I wait, and now I can see the guilt in my own eyes. I know a liar when I see one.

“You can fix it, though,” I add. “That's what you always do when you come out here, isn't it? When you arrive, Stacy's always nagging you and you're always insisting that everything's fine, and then you take a few days to get started but once you're off and flying... that's when the good stuff happens.”

Even as those words leave my mouth, I know that I'm in danger of pushing a little too much, but it's not as if I've got any other methods. A huge part of writing is about having the ego to believe that it's worth setting your words down on paper and worth sharing those words with other people, and I guess at some point every writer has to just blunder through all the self-doubt and get on with actually writing the damn book. And while I might be starting from a slightly lower point than usual, I'm still fairly sure that by the end of the week I'll have something I can send to my darling agent.

After turning the tap on and letting it run for a moment, I wash my face before drying it on a hand towel. Part of me wants to finish that second bottle of wine and maybe even open number three, but deep down I know that I really just need to focus and hit the ground running properly tomorrow. I head to the other side of the bathroom and grab my toiletry bag, while glancing out the window; I can see over to my bedroom from here, and I immediately spot my bed waiting with the reading light already on.

“Nearly there,” I say under my breath, carrying the bag to the sink and pulling out my toothbrush and a tube of paste. “Time to hit the hay.”

I spend a couple of minutes brushing my teeth properly, just the way Granny Linton taught me when I was a kid, before spitting the results out and rinsing the brush. Once that's all done, I take a moment to clean a couple of dry spots of skin around my nose before setting the bag back on the other counter.

And then, looking once more toward my bedroom window, I freeze as I see her.

I don't know how, but a naked woman is standing in front of the bed and staring straight at me. She has long, slightly curly reddish hair that hangs down slightly over her shoulders and small, pert breasts. Her belly is fairly flat and her crotch is filled with a full bush, while she has wide hips and a few tattoos on her thighs that are difficult to make out. The craziest part is that I think I recognize her from somewhere, even if I can't quite place her, but I know for absolute certain that there's no way she or anyone else should be standing in my bedroom right now.

Yet there she is, defiantly meeting my gaze as if she doesn't care that I can see her.

Worse, I think perhaps she wants to be seen.

“What the -”

Storming out of the bathroom, I hurry across the hallway and into the bedroom, and then I stop as soon as I see that there's now no sign of anyone next to the bed. I honestly don't get how she could have hurried out of the room so quickly without being seen and without making any noise, yet I can't deny that the woman is now gone.

Since there's only one way in or out of this room, I quickly tell myself that she has to still be here somewhere.

“Hello?” I call out, quickly checking the wardrobe before crouching down and looking under the bed.

Finding no sign of her, I head to the window and pull the curtains aside, and now I'm certain that there's nowhere she could possibly be hiding.

Worried that I might be losing my mind, I sprint back to the bathroom and look through once again toward the bed. This time there's no sign of the naked woman and everything looks the way it should, but my heart's pounding and I'm still not quite sure that I'm alone. I duck back through to the bedroom and take another look around, and then I run to the hallway and check that the front door is still bolted from the inside.

Once I'm sure that there's no way anyone could have crept into the house, I turn and look back along the hallway.

Silence.

“Hello?” I call out once again, and I'm a little shocked by the fact that my voice sounds so nervous. “Hey, hello? Is anyone here? Naked woman, if you're real, you need to let me know right now.”

Those words already sound so ridiculous even as they're leaving my mouth, yet I still can't help but worry that somehow the naked woman has managed to hide herself in my house. I listen to the silence as I think back to the brief thudding sound I heard earlier, and any attempt to calm my suspicions is quickly erased by the fear that someone might have broken into the place while I was in London. And then, like some creepy stalker-type from one of my more feverish novels, what if this someone has been living here ever since?

“Hey!” I yell, unable to hide a slight sense of anger now. “If there's anyone here, you need to get the fuck out! Do you understand me? I'm not kidding! If there's anyone hiding anywhere in this house, you need to come out immediately or I won't be responsible for my actions!”

Chapter Five

As soon as I push the cafe's door open the following morning, the bell rings to announce my return. Something about the sound of that bell is so familiar and reassuring, almost as if it's not until I hear it ring that I really feel as if my time in this neck of the woods has begun.

Every writer needs a cafe. Somewhere to sit and work, and to consider the big questions while avoiding being chained to a laptop all the time. And, of course, it doesn't hurt that quite often these cafes are home to the most delightfully perky and beautiful young waitresses.

“Mr. Linton, hey,” Sophie says with a smile as she glances up from the pot of coffee she's tending. “You're back.”

“I'm back,” I reply, smiling even though I'm feeling pretty knackered. Something about the sight of Sophie always picks me right back up. “And I told you, call me Tom. Mr. Linton makes me sound like a fusty old schoolteacher or something.”

Heading over to my favorite table, I set my bag down while glancing around and quickly seeing that I seem to be the only customer here. I don't spend much time in the local town when I'm at the house, but these little visits to the cafe are something of a 10am ritual. I tell myself that I come here because it helps to clear my mind or because I can get some notes written, but if I'm being completely honest there's one other and far more compelling reason for these trips.

“Long time, no see,” Sophie says as she sets the pot aside and grabs a large mug. “Usual?”

“Yes, please,” I reply.

She heads over to grab a tea bag, and I can't help but watch her every move. She's blonde, slim and truly beautiful, and that uniform hugs her figure in all the right places; she has the most delightful dimples on her cheeks and a habit of wearing dark eyeliner, not to mention those picture frame-style earrings with an art deco moon in the middle. I've occasionally looked online for something similar, wondering whether I could offer her a little gift without seeming creepy. I've reluctantly come to the conclusion that such an act might seem a little on the awkward side, even if I don't see that there's anything wrong with a man offering something pretty to a beautiful girl.

Her sense of style really is impeccable, though, especially for someone so young. Something about her has just always turned me on right from the first moment I ever met her. Unfortunately she's also barely out of her teens and, as such, is about twenty years too young for me, even if I sometimes casually speculate that we'd both be more than capable of navigating the problems that come with an age gap. There shouldn't be any hard and fast rules about that sort of thing.

“Still writing?” she calls over to me.

“You'd better believe it,” I reply.

“What's the new one about?”

“The usual,” I explain as I wander over to the counter and take my phone out. “People doing horrible things to each other. Other people trying to catch them. Everything going horribly wrong for five hundred pages and then getting tied up in a neat little bow along with a little twist to hopefully get readers coming back for the next in the series a year later. With a nice sprinkling of blood and torture along the way.”

“I don't get how you can keep writing such great stories,” she says as she brings my cup of green tea over. “I couldn't write a story if you gave me a hundred years, but you manage one every single summer and you always come up with such inventive ways for people to die. You must be a genius.”

“I don't think of myself as a genius,” I tell her, holding my phone close to the card reader to pay, then taking some coins from my back pocket and dropping them into the tip jar.

I always make sure that I have a tip for Sophie. She never acknowledges that fact, but I like to think that she notices.

“You're too kind,” she says with a big smile, and with an expression that I'd love to think means she wants me to rip her clothes off. “It's good to have you back, Mr. Linton. I'll be expecting you every morning at ten, right on the dot.”

“I'll be here for at least a week,” I tell her, taking my tea and heading back over to the table. “And please, I'm serious. Call me Tom. Mr. Linton just sounds way too formal. I'm a writer, not a fucking librarian.”

Chapter Six

Staring at my notebook and seeing all the squiggles and arrows I've been jotting down over the past half hour, I feel as if my mind's in a real twist. I need to figure out the plotting of the novel's third act and I know the answer is here somewhere, but I just can't work out how to deal with each and every one of these loose ends. Sometimes I swear that writing is more about solving complex puzzles than crafting creative stories.

More math than art.

Hearing the bell ring above the door, I don't even bother to look up. I feel as if I'm really in the zone right now, as if at any point I'm going to come up with a solution. To be honest, I'm not too worried; I've never ever failed to fix one of these problems yet and I don't intend to start now, even if I have to admit that over the years it takes a little more sweat each time to come up with a solution. Fortunately I can disappear inside my own head for a while during my stay at the house, and there's no way I'm leaving until this mess has been straightened out properly.

For a few minutes I barely even notice the sound of voices nearby, until finally one of those voices – belonging to Sophie – suddenly becomes a little louder and more defensive.

“I told you to stop it, Zac! Do you really have nothing better to do with your day?”

Glancing up, I see that some local oik from the town is grinning at her as he leans across the counter. Sophie, meanwhile, is clearly uncomfortable and has taken a step back from the till.

“Come on,” this Zac guys says, “why are you being so serious about it? We can have a little bit of fun, can't we?”

“It's not fun when you're a moron,” she replies, glancing briefly at me before stepping closer to him. “And if you hadn't noticed,” she whispers, just loud enough for me to hear, “I've got a customer. So shut your mouth.”

A customer?

I guess she doesn't want him to know that we're on first-name terms.

“You didn't want me to shut it the other night,” he says, before sticking the tip of his tongue out. “You wanted me to keep going on and on and -”

“Shut up!” she snaps, shoving him back from the counter before looking at me again and then taking a moment to pull herself together. “Is there anything else you'd like, Sir?” she asks him, adopting a notably more professional tone. “Or will that be all?”

“I suppose that'll be all for now,” he says, picking up a takeaway cup and removing the lid before sipping at the coffee. “I know I can always come back and get some more any time I want. Literally any time, night or day.”

“You should go back to work,” she replies, clearly making a point of turning her back on him as she walks over to the coffee machine. “I'm sure you'll be missed by the other guys. Eventually.”

“You love me really,” he chuckles, glancing briefly at me as he saunters out of the cafe.

I turn and watch as he leaves. The back of his overalls carries a logo for some local company called A.F. Richardson and Sons and there's something about the guy's unbridled confidence and swagger that really annoys me. I was never that kind of person when I was in my early twenties and I've never trusted people who exude that brand of hyper-masculine smugness.

I keep my eyes on 'Zac' as he walks away along the street and then I turn to see that Sophie's busying herself with the task of cleaning another coffee pot. She seems so much more uncomfortable now, as if she really hated the way the guy disrespected her, and for half a second I actually consider going after the young chap and letting him know that his behavior's unacceptable. He's obviously been raised badly. I quickly realize, however, that I'd be better off trying to make Sophie feel better, so I get to my feet and carry my empty cup to the counter.

My phone starts buzzing, but I know that'll just be Stacy again.

“Another?” Sophie asks, although this time her smile is a lot less authentic.

“Please,” I reply, and I watch as she takes the cup over to the other workspace. “Friend of yours?”

“Sorry?”

“That guy who was in just now,” I continue. “He seemed... intense.”

“Oh, that's just someone I've known since we were at school together,” she tells me. “You don't usually stay for two cups. Got a lot of work on?”

As she asks that question, her earrings glint in the sunlight that's streaming through the farthest window.

“You could say that,” I explain. “You know, you shouldn't have to worry about guys who come in and talk to you like that. No-one should have to deal with disrespect in the workplace. This is the twenty-first century, I thought we were beyond all that crap.”

“I'm fine,” she says as she carries my tea over. “Free refills, remember?”

“I'd forgotten, actually,” I admit, before pulling a few more coins from my pocket and slipping them into the tip jar. “I don't know how a place like this keeps going if you're always giving away your tea and coffee.”

“Gotta compete with the big chains in town,” she points out. “Since that new pub opened on the corner, a lot of people have been going there for their morning drinks instead.”

“There's a new pub?”

“It opened last year, remember?” she replies. “I think you were here when there was that big demonstration about it. You even signed the petition.”

“Of course,” I say, trying to disguise the fact that I still have no idea what she's talking about. “Well, I'll let you get back to work. But remember what I said just now, okay? You don't have to take shit from anyone. Especially not louts in overalls.”

“You're sweet,” she says with her customary smile as she heads over to one of the machines. “Enjoy your tea, Mr. Linton.”

“Call me Tom,” I reply. “Mr. Linton sounds like something you'd call a guy in his eighties.”

I wait for a reply but she doesn't seem to have noticed that I said anything at all. Instead she's working diligently to clean another set of pots, and as I turn and head back to the table I can't help thinking that she needs someone in her life who'll actually take care of her properly for once. A girl as smart and attractive as Sophie shouldn't be fending off the unwanted advances of local morons in a rundown little cafe.

She should be treated like a princess.

Chapter Seven

Taking the long route out of town, following a meandering road that twists its way through the edge of the forest, I tell myself that I'm really going to start working this morning. It's all well and good sitting around like some kind of 'artist', waiting for divine inspiration to drop beautiful words into my ears, but at some point I need to actually put pen to paper and get this thing written. Or, in my case, fingertips to the keyboard. Writing something is better than nothing.

As I take the next turn, I spot a truck parked by the side of the road. I drive past and begin to follow the next curve, but then I slowly bring the car to a halt and park at the edge of the forest. A moment later I look in the rear-view mirror and sure enough I see that I was right.

A.F. Richardson and Sons.

So that Zac guy from the cafe works for a tree surgeon. I can hear the sound of chainsaws running somewhere in the distance and occasional voices calling out, and when I look the other way I'm just about able to spot a few men working. Three of them are walking through the forest, decked out in gear, and I have no doubt that Mr. Zac is one of their number. He's probably laughing and joking right now, telling them all about his little spot of banter – sorry, bants – with Sophie a little while ago.

The worst thing is, his little tactic will probably work. Girls like Sophie, as sweet and innocent as they might be, so often get worn down by rough men. One thing I've noticed over the years is that most girls take a few decades before they start to appreciate the better things in life. When she's in her forties Sophie'll be tired of men like Zac and she'll be ready for... well, for someone like me. But right now, aged twenty-one or whatever she is, she'll eventually be seduced by the rough-and-ready style of these small-town Romeos and their messy ways.

And there's nothing anyone can do to change that. It's just part of the rhythm of life.

As I watch the men, one of them peels away and heads off by himself. I might be wrong, but I'm fairly sure that I recognize the way he's walking. That's our Mr. Zac and I have no doubt that he's slacking on the job. The further he goes from the rest of his little group, the smaller and more isolated he appears. After about half a minute he disappears from view and I can't help but squirm slightly in my seat.

It's the arrogance I hate the most.

I had my faults when I was a younger man but I was never arrogant, at least not in that way. Drumming my fingertips against the steering wheel, I feel the anger starting to bubble away in my chest and I tell myself that I really need to avoid letting this distract me from my work. Leaning back, I close my eyes and try to focus on the need to just start the car and get going again. There's nothing out here in this forest that needs to distract me at all.

Chapter Eight

As I slam the car door shut, I look over at the house and see the trees reflected in the windows. I know I should go straight inside and get to work, but for a moment I find myself thinking back to the drive from the cafe.

I don't...

Turning, I look back toward the road leading through the forest and I realize that somehow I don't quite remember the journey.

Looking the other way, I listen for a moment to the silence of the forest. I tell myself that the drive was just a boring, ordinary journey and that there's no need to remember it, yet the fact that I can't remember feels very wrong. At first I try to think back to the route I must have taken, since there are two possibilities, but even that fact feels elusive. And the more I try to force the memory back to the surface of my consciousness, the more I feel as if there's some kind of barrier in my mind.

But that's okay.

Everyone forgets the odd thing now and again. If humans didn't forget things, our minds would be completely full by the time we reached adulthood. Plus I've been focusing on the book so much lately and I never forget a single thing when I'm writing.

It's just the real world that sometimes trips me up.

And then, as I continue to look at the house, I spot several large blue and white sacks leaning against the wall. Making my way over, I see that these are sacks filled with what appears to be gritting salt. I reach down and touch one of the sacks and I feel that it's completely full, but to be honest I'm not quite sure why I ordered so much. I distinctly remember getting annoyed when my usual supplier turned out to not have anything in stock, and I searched high and low for someone else who could deliver but...

Why?

It's not like there's a lot of snow round these parts, and I reckon I must have enough gritting salt to last for the rest of my life. And while it's good to be prepared, there comes a point at which one can simply have too much of a good thing.

“Oh well,” I mutter under my breath, patting one of the sacks before turning and heading to the front door.

I glance again at the sacks, unable to dismiss a slight sense of suspicion, as I unlock the door and step into the house. I'm feeling a little more muddy-headed than usual and I'm starting to think that this whole morning has been one big sign that I need to get back to work.

For me, writing isn't just a chore. It's actually a way of thinking, or organizing my mind, and I think I've spent rather too much time drinking and socializing lately. Sometimes a person can get away from their core and that's probably why my mind isn't quite in the right place, so as I shut the door I try to remind myself exactly why I came out to the house this week in the first place. Noticing that one side of my coat is covered in dirt and mud, I start brushing it clean, but I know that I'm really just distracting myself from more important matters.

I have a book to finish and -

Before I can finish I hear the sound of a car approaching. Confused, I step to the side and look out toward the driveway, and to my horror I spot a familiar blue car bumping across the gravel and starting to pull to a halt next to my own vehicle. I feel a flicker of dread that lasts for perhaps half a second, and then I duck down and instinctively scurry into the front room before sitting on the floor and making sure that nobody outside will be able to see me.

“Fuck,” I whisper, wondering what the hell she's doing here.

Reaching into my pocket, I pull out my phone and see that although I set it on silent earlier, I've actually received three missed calls this morning. I tap to check them, and sure enough each and every one of them is from bloody Stacy.

Why the hell is she here?

She's my agent, not my bloody mother.

As I hear her car stopping, I tell myself that she's had a wasted trip. There's simply no way I'm going to walk out there and pretend that I'm happy to see her, because I'm not happy to see her. Doesn't she know by now that when I'm approaching a deadline, the best thing to do is just to leave me alone? Pressure doesn't work, it just pisses me off; I need to be left to follow my process, and then I always get things done.

Always.

A moment later she knocks on the door. I flinch, but then I tell myself that I don't have to answer. I don't have to do anything at all. It's not like she's got a key, so she can knock all she wants but I don't have to admit that I'm at home. Sure, my car's out there, but there are a million reasons why my car might be parked in front of the house when I'm not actually home. Stacy certainly can't simply assume that I'll be here whenever she deigns to show up. If she has anything important to say to me, she can leave a voice message or – ideally – put it all in an email.

I can ignore voice messages and emails.

What I can't ignore is this bitch stalking me and lingering outside my retreat. Still, she's not the only one who can be stubborn and I'm pretty sure I can stay right here for as long as necessary. And as she knocks yet again, I shift my position a little so that I'm more comfortable and I tell myself that two can play at this game. I'll just stay here on the floor, beneath the window, until Stacy finally gets the message and leaves.

Sure, she can be stubborn. But I'm worse.

Chapter Nine

I never noticed how much that clock on the wall ticks.

Checking my watch, I see that one entire hour has now passed since Stacy arrived. I haven't moved in all that time; I've stayed right here on the floor, refusing to budge until she drives away. I heard her car door swinging shut a while back but she hasn't fucked off, so it's clear that she's simply sitting out there and waiting for me to come back. She probably suspects that I'm hiding, or she thinks I'm still in bed, or perhaps she wonders whether I've gone out for a hike in the forest.

She's tried my phone a few more times, but it's still on silent.

As the clock continues to tick, I look through toward the kitchen and see my laptop on the table. That's the craziest part of this whole situation: Stacy has no doubt come out here to nag me so that I'll finish the book, yet it's precisely her presence that's now stopping me doing any work. In the hour since she showed up, I could easily have got another thousand or so words done and I'd most likely be in my groove. I'd be set for a long afternoon of work during which I might even have been able to break the backbone of the story.

Instead she's got me here sitting pointlessly on the floor while I wait for her to get the bloody message.

“Just leave,” I whisper under my breath. “You know I'm not going to break and let you win. Just leave and -”

Suddenly I hear a scratching sound coming from somewhere below. I look down at the zebra wood floor that I spent so much money on, and I realize that something seems to be scratching at the underside. That means that something's in the basement, which really shouldn't be possible since I had that place sealed properly, but perhaps some kind of critter has managed to find a way in. As the scratching sound continues I make a mental note to go down there later and figure out what's happening, but right now I can't afford to move too far.

I'm basically a prisoner in my own home.

As the seconds tick past at an agonizingly slow pace, I once again look at my laptop. I don't know whether it's because I know I can't get to it, but right now I feel as if I'm filled with the urge to write, as if I could conjure up the greatest prose of my life if Stacy would just fuck the hell off and leave me alone. I'd be tapping away at the keyboard like Angela Lansbury in a title sequence and everyone would be happy. Instead I'm hiding on the floor like a child and I can't even go down into my own basement and find out what kind of animal is damaging my expensive floor.

Next to me, my phone flashes again as another silent call comes in. At least I didn't agree last year when Stacy wanted to install tracking on my phone. She claimed it was just to make sure that she could check when I was on my way to any kind of public appearance, but deep down I know she'd have been using it every day.

She'd certainly be using it now.

After a few seconds, hearing a shuffling sound, I look once again toward the kitchen.

I see my laptop on the table with its lid still closed, but there's no obvious source for what seems to be the sound of feet dragging slightly across the floor. I know there's no-one else in the house and that the sound must be caused by something else, but I have to admit that it's a little spooky.

And then, very slowly, a shadow starts to spread across the far wall.

“What the...”

My first instinct is to get up and run, but I force myself to remain right where I am. I keep telling myself that I must be imagining things, and that perhaps Stacy has taken to peering through various windows, but I'm sure she's still in her car. The shadow becomes a little clearer, however, until finally a woman limps awkwardly into view.

She's naked.

I blink, but she's still there. Just like the red-haired woman I thought I saw last night, this woman is completely nude from top to toe. She's about the same age as her predecessor, perhaps mid-twenties, but she's much skinnier and just generally smaller all round, save for larger breasts that hang slightly flat against her chest. She has short, closely cropped black hair and very thick mascara smeared all around her eyes, and there appear to be several thick cuts running diagonally down on one side of her belly.

And she's in my fucking house.

“No,” I whisper, convinced that I have to be imagining things even as the woman stops in the doorway and stares at me. “This is not happening.”

As the phone starts flashing again, with Stacy's name on the screen, I maintain eye contact with the hallucination and try to will her to vanish using the power of my mind. The woman last night was imaginary and this one is too, although after a few seconds I realize that I might have seen this latest arrival before.

Sure, she's a little thinner and more frazzled, but she looks a lot like the woman who used to work as a cashier at the cinema in town. I remember eyeing her up a few times during my visits, but I have no idea why she's now standing naked in my house.

“Go away,” I mouth, worried that Stacy will see her – and that against all the odds she might actually be real. When that doesn't work, I hold up a hand and gesture for her to leave. “Are you high? Get out of my house!”

If I could stand up right now, I'd go straight through there and see what the hell's wrong with her. She must be drunk or on drugs, although so far she doesn't seem particularly dangerous. Then again, the people in this part of the world are borderline hillbillies. I'm certainly not opposed to the idea of attractive twenty-something women showing up completely naked in my home, and in different circumstances I'd probably tell her to make herself comfortable, but right now this whole situation is extremely awkward.

And a moment later, as if to just turn the screw a little tighter, I hear Stacy's car door opening – followed by the sound of footsteps marching once more toward the house.

“Get the fuck out of sight!” I hiss, still keeping my voice low so that I won't be heard from outside. “I swear, if you don't get out of sight right now I'll...”

What?

What will I do to this attractive naked woman? I can think of a few ideas, at least for activities once she's sobered up, but right now I just want her to go away and -

Suddenly Stacy knocks on the door again.

“Tom?” she calls out. “I know you're in there, Tom. Come on, this is ridiculous. There's no way you've gone out anywhere without your car. If you're still in bed, get up. It's one in the afternoon and you're a grown man with a deadline.”

Okay, I'm starting to sweat now. This situation is becoming increasingly farcical and if there's one thing I hate more than coriander and mime, it's farces.

“Go away!” I mouth at the naked woman, but she's still watching me from the doorway leading into the kitchen. “Go -”

In that moment Stacy knocks on the window directly above me and I almost jump out of my skin. I pull my feet a little closer, although I know there's still no way she can see me down here. She'll be able to see Lady Godiva over there, however, and I doubt that sight will exactly endear her to my situation or make her go away.

“Tom Linton!” Stacy calls out, knocking on the window again. “This is ridiculous. I'm here because you're ignoring my calls.”

I can't help but sigh.

“I can see your laptop,” she adds. “I can see it through there in the kitchen.”

In that moment, puzzled, I realize that something seems to be very wrong. The naked woman is still in the doorway, but she's pretty much entirely obscuring the view of my laptop from here and I don't get how Stacy could see that far into the kitchen. There's a very shapely and feminine pelvis blocking the view, yet Stacy's acting like she hasn't noticed the naked woman at all.

“Tom, grow up and come to the door so I can talk to you,” she continues. “I'm not leaving until you do. If I have to sit out there in my car for the rest of the day, I will. If I have to stay overnight, I'll do that too. I know you're not bloody hiking. So why don't you do the right thing and just show yourself?”

I hesitate for a few seconds, determined to stay strong, but something about this whole situation is making me worried for my sanity. Finally I get to my feet and turn to see her glaring at me from the window's other side, and then I point back toward the naked woman in the doorway.

“Do you not see that?” I call out to her. “Seriously, Stacy? Does that not make you think that this is perhaps an inappropriate time to call?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” she replies, and in that moment I realize that she actually can't see the naked woman. My first suspicion must have been correct after all. “Tom, are you going to let me in or do I have to keep yelling at you from out here?”

Chapter Ten

As soon as I've pulled the front door open, Stacy storms into the hallway and her high heels tap loudly against my expensive floor.

“You're a grown man,” she says, stopping and turning to me. “Have you done any writing at all today?”

“Good day to -”

“Have you done any writing?”

“Would you like a drink or -”

“Have you done any writing, Thomas?”

“Don't call me Thomas,” I say with a sigh, “you know I hate it when people -”

“Have you done any bloody writing, you piece of shit?”

“Not yet, no,” I reply as I push the door shut and head into the front room, only to find that there's now no sign of the naked woman at all. I know there's absolutely no point mentioning any of that weirdness to Stacy, not when she's in one of her infamous moods. “I got...”

I hesitate for a moment before turning once more to my agent.

“I got distracted,” I admit.

“By what? Women? Wine?”

“By a few different things, actually,” I tell her cautiously, before making my way into the kitchen and looking around again. “They're... gone now. I think. By the way, can you take your heels off? You'll scratch my expensive floor.”

Still half-convinced that Stacy somehow missed the naked woman because of some weird reflection in the window, I'm not quite sure what I expect to find. As I look around the empty kitchen, however, I can't help but note that there's no way my apparent visitor could have run away so quickly, which leaves me with only one other likely explanation.

She was never here in the first place.

“I'm losing my mind,” I whisper.

“What was that?” Stacy asks, hurrying through to join me, stopping with her hands on her hips. “Did you say something about a plot? Do you actually have a plot for your latest book, Tom?”

“Of course I have a plot,” I tell her. “I sent you the first hundred or so pages. Haven't you looked at them?”

“Oh, I've looked at them,” she replies, and I can instantly tell that for some reason she's extremely unimpressed. “I've looked at them over and over again, and each time do you know what I've been thinking?”

“I -”

“I've been thinking that they have to be some kind of joke, perhaps an elaborate prank or a literary hoax that's missing its punchline, because there's no way that so-called manuscript can actually be your attempt to write another novel.”

“What's wrong with it?” I ask, trying in vain to keep from sounding too defensive.

“What's wrong with it?” she replies, echoing my question. “What's right with it, Tom? That's the question! In all my years in this job, I've never known anyone to hand in a first draft that's so obviously the result of some kind of... bender. Were you drunk when you wrote it?”

“Of course I wasn't,” I tell her, bristling at the suggestion. “Did you just come here to insult me? What the hell's wrong with the book, anyway?”

“I'll show you,” she says, setting her briefcase on the table and clicking it open. “I didn't come all this way just to turn around without getting my point across.”

She slaps a tattered print-out of my latest manuscript on the table.

“Sit down, Tom,” she says firmly. “I'm going to show you exactly what's wrong with this so-called attempt at a book.”

Chapter Eleven

“As he presses himself against me, I finally realize that I have no choice. I hesitate for a moment longer, for just a fraction of a second in an attempt to maintain my reputation, and then I lean forward and gently kiss his moth.”

“That's a typo,” I reply. “It's obviously a typo. It's supposed to be his mouth.”

“Oh, I know that,” she says smugly. “That's one of the few I was able to decipher.”

She turns to the next page.

“And here, when we get to the sex scene,” she continues, “I particularly loved the part where she puts his pens into her mouth.”

“That's supposed to be -”

“I know what it's supposed to be!” she snaps angrily. “I also figured out a few chapters earlier that nobody was settling a baby down to sleep in a crab!”

I roll my eyes.

“Those are just the amusing ones,” she goes on. “The vast majority of the typos in this sloppy excuse for a manuscript are simply confusing, and that's before we get to the many times you get characters' names wrong. Are you aware that after about fifty pages, Catherine's name suddenly becomes Elizabeth?”

“It does?” I reply, genuinely shocked.

“Meanwhile at one point Debra's arguing with herself, because you keep using her name for Diane as well.”

“Everyone makes mistakes,” I insist, although as I leaf through the manuscript a little more I have to admit that there are quite a lot more errors than usual. Didn't I check this thing at least once? “I've made typos before. You don't usually track me down and yell at me like I'm a child.”

“There are five hundred and thirty-two errors in this manuscript,” she replies matter-of-factly, and I have no doubt that she got one of her unpaid interns to count the damn things precisely. “That's almost six on every page. The story makes no sense, Tom!”

“I can untangle it.”

“There's nothing to untangle,” she says with a sigh, before taking a seat opposite me. “It's just a bunch of scenes that don't really go anywhere. Tom, for all your faults you usually know how to tell a compelling story with interesting characters. Your prose snaps and sizzles, it reaches off the page and comes alive in the mind of the reader. But this...”

She reaches out and takes the manuscript, holding it up for a moment before letting it fall from her hands so that it lands limply on the table.

“This is unpublishable,” she tells me, “and almost certainly unsalvageable. I've never said this to a client before and I can't believe I'm saying it to you now, but I really think there's only one option. You have to rip the entire thing up and start again. Preferably with your brain switched on this time.”

“And what if I want the typos?” I ask.

“Why the hell would you want typos in your work?”

“They're raw. They're signs that the work has come straight from my brain and onto the page, unfiltered by the commercial processes of the publishing industry.”

“Tom...”

“They're punk!” I exclaim. “It's like punk music, but with books! Isn't that the height of cool?”

“Having typos in your work isn't punk,” she insists, and she sounds pretty tired of my bullshit now. “It's lazy and disrespectful to your readers. And it makes you look like a complete berk.”

“That's a little harsh,” I reply grudgingly. “I admit it, the book needs work but -”

“This excuse for a book needs to be burned. That's the only thing I'm interested in doing to it!”

“I think you're enjoying haranguing me,” I protest, fidgeting slightly in my chair. “You're actually being quite unprofessional.”

“What's going on with you, Tom?” she asks wearily, and I can't help but feel as if she's treating me like a complete fool. “Don't try to tell me that you're fine, because we both know that's not true. I've known you for a long time now, we've worked together very successfully for plenty of years. You're not fine.”

She pauses before reaching over and touching my hand.

“What -”

I immediately pull away, horrified by the feel of her cold skin.

“What's going on in your head?” she continues, pulling her hand back. “You're not acting like yourself, Tom. Even your emails don't always make sense. Please don't take this the wrong way, I know we've discussed this before and you made your feelings on the subject very clear, but is it possible that there might be something wrong with you in a... medical sense?”

Rolling my eyes again, I add a shake of my head for good measure.

“I'm worried,” she tells me. “There, I admitted it. I'm actually genuinely worried about you but I don't know how to help.”

“I don't need your help,” I reply, sounding slightly bitter now. “I don't need anyone's help.”

“What about a doctor?”

I let out another heavy sigh.

“Last week you called my office to ask about rescheduling a meeting,” she continues. “That meeting was one we'd already had two days earlier. And the last time you and I spoke on the phone, you kept using the wrong words for things.”

“Nonsense.”

“Other people have noticed it too,” she adds. “People are starting to talk, Tom. I know this is a sensitive subject because I know your parents both died after being diagnosed with dementia, but there's nothing to be gained from leaving it to fester for too long. If something's wrong, it's better to find out now so that you can take advantage of the latest treatment, rather than sticking your head in the sand and pretending that it's all fine.”

“I don't have a problem,” I tell her firmly, and now I'm having to fight against the urge to pick her up by the scruff of the neck and physically eject her from my property. “Okay, I admit that I've let my focus drift a little and that maybe my standards have slipped.”

I glance at the manuscript for a moment, but in all honesty I feel too ashamed to even acknowledge its existence for too long. After a few seconds I turn and instead look through to the hallway, and I realize that the scratching sound from the basement has stopped and that there has been no further sign of that second naked woman. What if the storm – whatever it was – has passed? I'm sure everyone hallucinates the odd naked woman now and again, especially if they're going through a bit of a drought.

“It's nothing I can't deal with,” I add as I feel a sense of renewed determination starting to rise through my chest. “I'll fix this, I swear. I'll get back on the right track and I'll write the best damn book you've ever read.”

“I really hope you do,” she tells me, and I can hear the concern in her voice now. Despite her reputation for being a hard-ass, I must begrudgingly admit that deep down Stacy's a decent person. “Promise me that the next draft is gonna be a real killer, Tom. Remember what they say in this business... you're only ever as good as the sales of your last book.”

Chapter Twelve

“This place is... adequate, I suppose,” Stacy says several hours later, as we sit in the town's one and only non-pubby restaurant. “At least they're making something of an effort.”

The word 'restaurant' might be a little strong for Alfie's, but the joint's decent enough. It's basically what I like to call a meat bar, in other words a place that serves steaks and burgers and pretty much nothing else. They offer simple food and they know what they're doing, but a vegetarian or a vegan would be chased out with pitchforks. Welcome to a small town, I guess.

“Are you sure you're okay?”

Turning to Stacy, I see an unusual sense of concern in her eyes, something almost bordering on basic human sympathy. For all the cliches about agents, sometimes Stacy can be on the milder end of the spectrum, although that means she can be a tad annoying. Every time we meet, the same thing happens: she comes storming in, throwing her weight around, and then eventually she softens. Over the years we've even had one or two misjudged sexual dalliances, although we both know that it has never been more than that.

“I can't help noticing,” she continues, “that your hand...”

I furrow my brow, not quite understanding what she means. When I glance down at my hands, however, I see that the left is trembling slightly as I hold the menu. I adjust the position of my elbow on the table and the trembling goes away, but I already know that Stacy's going to make some kind of big deal out of the whole thing.

“It's just -”

“Have you seen a doctor?” she asks pointedly.

“I dated an anesthetist for a few weeks last year,” I reply. “Does that count?”

As soon as those words have left my mouth, I realize that I sound too cocksure, too flippant, and that she's going to turn the whole thing around against me.

“A year's a long time, Tom,” she points out. “What about that Doctor Jordan guy you sometimes see privately? Sometimes symptoms come on quickly and -”

“I'm absolutely fine.”

“Are you?”

“Come on, Sophie, we're supposed to be having a non-work meal before you head back to London,” I continue, struggling to hold back a sigh. “My health is fine and if anything changes, I'll let you know.”

I wait for her to reply, but now she's simply staring at me.

“That's twice you've called me Sophie since I arrived,” she says bluntly. “Who's Sophie?”

“I don't know,” I reply, before shaking my head. “Okay, whatever, she's a girl who works at the cafe down the road. Pretty little thing, quite attractive. The kind I would've been all over when I was slightly younger. I guess I got your names muddled up because... well, I was probably just thinking about her shapely form while you were babbling on about boring stuff, that's all.”

She rolls her eyes.

“I'm completely fine,” I say firmly. “I don't need you fussing over me. In fact, you know full well that I hate anything like that. Just leave me alone to get on with fixing the book, and soon enough you'll see that everything's fine. I'm not going to end up like -”

I catch myself just in time. I was about to mention my father, and I can see from the look in her eyes that she too knows exactly how that sentence was going to end. In an effort to reset everything, I turn and look out the window. In that moment, however, I see a man standing outside staring at me. He's wearing a red patterned shirt and jeans, and even in the low light I recognize him immediately.

It's my father.

Chapter Thirteen

Ten years earlier...

“That nurse is up to something,” Dad says, sitting up in his hospital bed and looking past me, glaring at the empty doorway. “She comes in when I'm asleep and goes through my things.”

“I really don't think she does,” I tell him.

“She does!” he hisses. “I know she does! I'm fast asleep and she's going through my drawers and bags, and she smiles while she's stealing my stuff! I've got heirlooms in there!”

“If you're fast asleep,” I reply, “then how do you know she's smiling?”

“I just know, that's all,” he says, reaching past me with a trembling hand and picking his watch up off the bedside table. “I have to hide my really important things now. I know that sort, I know what they're like. They come to this country and they think -”

“Okay, Dad,” I say, interrupting him as I get to my feet. “It sounds like you've got a system now and it's working for you. If it keeps you busy, I'm really not going to interrupt.”

“You think I'm crazy.”

“I think -”

Looking down at him, I see the fear in his eyes and I realize that I absolutely do think that he's crazy. In fact, thanks to the doctors and their very thorough and rigorous tests, I know for a fact that he's crazy.

His mind is declining so fast, he gets names and facts wrong all the time, and every time I visit it's as if another part of him has disintegrated. The scariest part is that I truly can't imagine how this is going to progress. If he's deteriorated this much in the space of just three months, then what's going to be left of him by Christmas? By his next birthday? And as I look at his eyes, I can't help wondering what he's actually seeing and understanding.

I remember how dementia crumbled my mother's mind to dust before she died. Now the exact same thing is happening to Dad.

“They all think I'm crazy here,” he goes on, “but I'm not. I forget things now and again, that's all, and they use it as an excuse against me. It's a trap, they do it to everyone on this ward, they trick us using our own minds.”

“Mr. Linton,” one of the nurses says, carrying some fresh bedding into the room and setting it down onto a nearby chair, “how are you doing today? I'm going to be changing your sheets in a bit, but there's no rush. It'll be nice to have a fresh clean bed for tonight, won't it?”

“That's another one,” Dad whispers to me.

“I'll let you get on with things,” the nurse says as he turns to leave the room. He clearly heard Dad's little comment but I imagine he and his colleagues have learned to ignore things like that. “Have a nice morning, Mr. Linton.”

“He steals from me too,” Dad says, tugging on my arm. “And he's got yellow eyes sometimes, so he can see into my head.”

I watch as the nurse walks out, and then I look down at Dad again.

“Yellow eyes?” I say, raising a cautious eyebrow.

“That's how you know when they're looking into your head,” he says confidently, as if he believes every wacky word that's tumbling from his mouth right now. “Their eyes go gray in the middle but they glow yellow, and they're reading your thoughts. There should be some way to stop them, I think there is and the doctors know it, but they won't share the secret.”

“Let me just use the bathroom,” I reply, stepping away and heading to the door in the corner, “and then you can give me a list of things you want me to bring next time.”

“I know all about you, you know,” he adds.

Opening the door to Dad's private bathroom, I glance back at him.

“I know you're helping them,” he says, nodding as if he's imparting some deep secret. “I'm onto you. You shouldn't do it. You should be on my side.”

“Dad -”

“Your own father,” he adds with a hint of sadness in his voice. “Tossed to the wolves. I'd be absolutely fine if I wasn't trapped in here with these people. You know they poison my food, don't you? That's what makes me forget things.”

He holds up his hands, showing me that they're trembling again.

“They put something in my breakfast, lunch and dinner to make this happen. And dessert too! Take me away from here, Tom, and in twenty-four hours I'll be back to normal. I'll be completely fine. You know it's true, you just have to... you have to have some faith in me, that's all.”

I open my mouth to tell him that he just needs to trust the doctors and keep taking his meds, but in truth I've said that to him a thousand times over the past year or so. While they haven't used the exact phrase, I know full well that the doctors are simply trying to give Dad a 'managed decline' in this final stage of his illness, but sometimes I wonder whether I can handle being around him so much. Once it gets to the point where he's barely Dad at all, part of me would like to just stay away so that I don't have to see this. Then again, if there's even the slightest chance that he'll be wondering where I am...

I can't abandon him. I just can't. Even if I know that the last part of his life is going to be hell for both of us, I'm going to stick by him until the very end.

Chapter Fourteen

Still in Dad's hospital bathroom, having spent a few minutes 'freshening up' as they call it, I peer into the mirror above the sink. There's no sign of tears in my eyes, which is good. For a moment just now, I felt as if my emotions were getting on top of me again, but I think I've managed to push them back down where they belong.

I take a moment to flush the toilet, I run the tap for a few seconds, and then I step back out into Dad's room.

“Hey,” I say, forcing a big smile, “so I should probably take off for today but I'll be back at -”

Stopping suddenly, I see that there's no sign of him on the bed. In fact, as I look all around, I see no sign of him anywhere at all.

“- the weekend,” I add, before stepping over to the door and looking out at the ward.

Still no sign of him.

“Dad?” I continue, before noticing that there seems to be a shape hiding behind one of the curtains over on the far side of the room.

I can't help but sigh as I realize that he's hiding. Sometimes, when his condition is particularly bad, he becomes so childlike that I genuinely don't know how to cope. I remember playing hide and seek games with him when I was a kid, and now our positions have reversed.

“Dad,” I say, trying to turn this into something a little less serious, “I know you're in here somewhere.”

Stepping past the bed, I look down at the bottom of the curtains and my heart almost breaks as I see his old bare feet poking out at the bottom. I was only in the bathroom for five minutes maximum, yet evidently that was enough to set Dad off on another of his infantile games. I honestly don't know whether to laugh or cry, but I suppose doing both would also be an option.

Still, as I make my way to the curtain I tell myself that I just need to get out of here.

“Okay, Dad,” I say, pulling the curtain aside, “this is a fun game but -”

“You!” he screams, lunging at me and grabbing me by the throat, then shoving me down against the bed. “Get away from me! You're a demon!”

“Fuck!” I gasp, trying to pull away – only to find that he's way too strong. “Dad, get the hell off me!”

“I know what you are!” he shouts. “I know what you all are! You're demons! You're monsters! You want to steal my soul and replace me with one of your own, and you want to wear my flesh so that you can infect children!”

I try again to push him away, but he's a hell of a lump. A moment later, however, two orderlies rush into the room and manhandle him away, leaving me gasping for breath as I sit up. I look over and watch the men restraining Dad, and as much as I hate to see how rough they're being, I can't blame them for wanting to get him under control.

“Are you okay, Mr. Linton?” one of them asks me.

“I'm fine,” I lie, still rubbing my sore neck as the other orderly puts a knee on Dad's back to hold him down. “Hey, don't hurt him. He doesn't mean it.”

“You're all monsters!” Dad screams, glaring at me as a third orderly rushes into the room. “You're the main one! You want to steal my soul because you know I'm the only good one left! You're the king of all the demons! I remember when you were born! I've always known what you are!”

Chapter Fifteen

Today...

“Tom?”

I blink, and in that instant the face of the man standing outside changes. Although he's still wearing a red-patterned shirt that looks just like the one I gave Dad for Christmas all those years ago, now I see that his face is almost completely obscured by a big white beard.

A moment later the man's wife joins him. They link arms and walk away together, chatting happily, and I can't believe that I ever mistook that guy for my father. They're really not very alike at all.

“Tom?”

I turn to see Stacy watching me with another expression of concern, just as our steaks are placed on the table between us.

“Any sauces?” the waitress asks.

“No, we're fine, thank you,” Stacy says firmly, before waiting as the woman walks away. “You were off in your own world for a moment there, Tom,” she continues. “Don't even bother to deny it, because I know it's true.”

“I was just thinking about...”

My voice trails off as I realize that I can't complete that sentence. Or, rather, I don't want to complete it, even if deep down I know Stacy has already guessed what I was thinking about. After all, she was my agent all through the time when Dad was getting sick, and then through his year at the hospital, then through his death and everything that happened after. She knows me better than anyone in the whole world.

“I'll have the book completely finished by the end of the month,” I tell her. “How about that? Can we set that as the new deadline? And this time, I promise that it'll also be typo free.”

“Don't make promises you can't keep.”

“I can keep this one,” I insist.

I wait for her to nag me some more, but instead she fixes me with a glare that tells me she doesn't believe a word. For as long as I've known her, Stacy has had a tendency to nag me about deadlines and mistakes and everything else; this time is different, however, and I can't help but shift uncomfortably as I feel her eyes almost burning into me. I want to protest, to defend myself, to insist yet again that I'm completely fine; I'm at the stage, however, where each and every denial is only going to make her feel more certain that she's right. That's the problem with people like Stacy: they lure you into these traps and then there's simply no way to crawl out.

“Whatever,” she murmurs, looking down at her steak and starting to cut a slice off. “They call this medium rare? The damn thing's been nuked.”

“I'm not turning into my father,” I tell her.

Again she doesn't answer. Instead she slips a piece of steak into her mouth and chews, and from the look on her face I can instantly tell that she's not impressed.

“It's not necessarily hereditary,” I add.

She's still chewing, so I guess that gives her an excuse, otherwise I'm sure she'd have something snarky to say to me.

“Believe me,” I continue, “I'm more than aware of the warning signs. Do you seriously think I wouldn't be all over that?”

“The point -”

She takes a moment to chew a little more, and then she swallows.

“Wow, that was tough,” she adds. “The point is that you're still one of the most popular authors on my books. You're an asset for the company and I need to protect you. If you're coming down with anything at all, there might be medication that can stave off the symptoms and at least give you more time. Come on, Tom, at least come out with one more hit so I can get a big bonus and buy my dream car.”

“A few typos don't mean that I'm losing my mind.”

“You called me Sophie.”

“A slip of the tongue.”

“Eight times so far.”

“Eight?”

Staring at her, I can't help but wonder whether she's exaggerating. Sure, I know I used the wrong name a couple of times, but eight seems excessive. Again, though, protesting will only make me seem more desperate, and that's probably exactly what she wants. She's trying to trip me up all the time now.

“I'm busy thinking about the book,” I tell her. “Plotting, characterization, that sort of thing. A lot more goes into it than just coming up with a vague idea.”

“Uh huh.”

“You don't have to believe me, but it's true,” I insist. “When I'm working on something new, I tend to disappear into my own thoughts. That's always been the case, and to be honest, I don't feel the need to defend myself. I have my working methods and you've never complained before.”

“You've never used those working methods to excuse other mistakes before.”

I can't help sighing. To be honest, part of me wants to just storm out of here and go home, but I know I need to play nice. There's no way to win an argument with Stacy, even when she's completely wrong, so finally I tell myself that I just need to get through this meal. She's already promised that she's heading back to London as soon as we're done, so I really only have to endure her for another half hour or so. Then I can get home and do some proper work, which is what I'd have been doing all afternoon if I hadn't been so rudely interrupted.

“Yeah, it's tough as hell,” I say, cutting into the steak on my own plate. “I've had shoes that were more tender.”

Chapter Sixteen

Somehow, between waving Stacy off and making my way home via a local bar, I end up pretty tipsy by the time I walk through my front door. Once the door's shut I lean back and take a moment to steady myself, and I have to admit that I'm quite surprised by how drunk I've become. It's only now that I realize I really shouldn't have driven home in this state, but I guess the roads are pretty empty this late so there wasn't much danger.

“Bad boy,” I mutter, tossing my keys onto the hall table before away. “Naughty Tom...”

After a pretty disastrous attempt to slip out of my coat, which I then throw onto the stairs, I stop in the front room and immediately open a bottle of red wine. I know I shouldn't drink more, but I've broken the seal now so I figure I might as well accept that this is going to be one of 'those' nights. I struggle a little with the corkscrew, but finally I get it open and I enjoy slowly pouring myself a large glass.

And then, just as I set the bottle down, I hear a bumping sound coming from somewhere out in the hallway.

I immediately turn and look at the open door, and although I don't see any sign of an intruder, I can't help thinking back to the strange woman I saw before. In fact, ever since I showed up here I've been feeling strangely un-alone, as if at the edge of my senses I've been detecting some kind of presence. As much as I tell myself that this simply isn't possible, I take the glass of wine to the door and look out at the empty hall, and then I wait for the sound to return.

Silence prevails, but a few seconds later I notice something else that seems odd.

The kitchen light is on.

Stepping over, I look into the kitchen and see that sure enough the light at the far end, near the oven, has been switched on at some point. Sure, I didn't take a photo as proof, but I'm absolutely certain that the kitchen lights weren't on when I left earlier. I look around the room, watching for any other sign that something's amiss, but I quickly tell myself that there's really no need to be paranoid.

After turning the light off and checking that there's nothing wrong with the switch, I carry my glass of wine toward the front room, determined to -

Suddenly I hear a roar.

Before I have a chance to react, a shape flashes out from behind the living room door and slams into me, knocking me back with such force that I slam down against the floor as the shape – a person – lands directly on top of me and starts hammering at me with its fists.

The wine glass falls from my hand and smashes.

Looking up, I'm startled to find that a bloodied naked woman has appeared as if from nowhere. She's covered in blood and other dark smudges, and the stench from her body is overpowering. Her eyes are wide and frantic, filled with anger, and her hair is a matted mess.

In that moment she grabs me by the throat and screams as she starts to squeeze tight.

I take hold of her arms and try to shove her aside, but she's far too strong. Realizing that I need to find some way to force her off, I push against her scratched and bloodied chest and then – filled with a sense of panic – I twist my right leg and slam my knee up into her belly.

She lets out a pained gasp and relaxes her grip on my neck just slightly, and I manage to push her aside and shove her against the floor as I try to get up.

“Who the -”

Swinging her left fist, she half punches me in the jaw, but she mostly misses. I grab her arm and slam it against the floor, but she's already scratching at my face with her other hand and the nails are sharp. As I feel her cutting my cheek, I try to twist away but she's wily and fast.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I shout. “Who are -”

Her elbow slams into my mouth and I hear – and feel – a heavy crunch. Immediately tasting blood, I spit out a tooth and try to turn away, but she's too quick: she hits me with her elbow again, this time hard in the eye, and I can't help but gasp as I turn the other way.

Reaching out, I grab her by the throat and try to push her back, but she starts spitting in my eyes. I turn around and now I've managed to get away from her face, but she uses this opportunity to kick me hard in the crotch. I almost slip free, but she somehow punches me a couple more times, almost knocking more teeth out before finally I shove her against the wall and pull back.

Getting to her feet while I pull away, she towers over me for a moment. Just as I think she might be about to leave me alone, she grabs the vase from a nearby table and throws it. I hold my hands up just in time and the vase slams mostly harmlessly against my arms before toppling down and smashing against the floor. As I start to lower my hands, however, the woman screams again and this time she throws the table at me.

Scrambling free, I grab the chair by the door and start to haul myself up.

After a fraction of a second the woman kicks me hard in the back and I slump back down. Holding my arms up in a desperate attempt to protect my head, I turn just as she drops down onto me and now she's raining punch after punch against the top of my head. No matter which way I turn, I can't escape the force of her anger and I can already feel a sharp pain in my left temple.

Finally, realizing that I'm losing this battle, I slump down and try in vain to protect myself. Instead I feel her elbow hitting me on the side of the head, a blow that's repeated two more times before suddenly everything goes black.

Chapter Seventeen

At first I struggle to see anything at all.

My vision is slightly blurred as I haul myself into the chair in the hallway. I blink a few times and things improve, but I'm still worried I might have some kind of concussion; I blink again and finally I'm able to see properly, but as I lean back I feel sharp pains all over my body.

After taking a moment to catch my breath, I listen to the silence of the house. Since I came around a few minutes ago, there's been no further sign of the insane woman, although I'm not entirely convinced that she won't suddenly burst out from somewhere again. I know I need to check that she's truly gone, but right now any thought of movement fills me with dread.

Even breathing hurts, and I'm worried the crazy bitch might have broken a few of my ribs. She certainly knocked a tooth out, and when I reach up and touch my cheek I feel scratches from her fingernails. In fact, I haven't even begun to count all my injuries, but I think I might very well need a tetanus shot.

Looking at my hands I see that they're caked in blood, but to be honest I'm not sure if that's from me or whether it came from her and merely got wiped all over me in the struggle.

For a couple of minutes, I can only sit in a kind of stunned silence. I'm reasonably sure that the insane woman is gone now; even if she isn't, I don't think I have the strength to put up much more of a fight. Instead I remain slumped in the chair as I struggle to get my breath back, and I can't help but think back to the sight of that lunatic. She was naked and covered in cuts and bruises, with blood and all sorts of other bodily fluids smeared all over her bare flesh. Her hair was dirty and wild and her eyes...

Her eyes were filled with madness. That's the only way I can describe the intense glare that burst from her as she tried to throttle the life out of me. I have no doubt whatsoever that she was trying to kill me, and I'm not entirely sure why she eventually left me merely unconscious. I can only assume that in her haste, she perhaps mistakenly assumed that her task was complete. She literally left me for dead.

Finally, telling myself that I really need to know for certain that she's gone, I haul myself very unsteadily from the chair. I limp through to the next room, then the next, although I quickly realize that getting upstairs would be a task too far. Instead I stop for a moment in the hallway, and I start looking around for my phone.

Chapter Eighteen

“There are no obvious signs of forced entry,” Detective Inspector Robinson says as he stands in the kitchen a couple of hours later. “The back door is unlocked. Did you leave it like that when you went out?”

“No,” I reply, shaking my head before realizing that I'm honestly not quite sure. “I don't know. Maybe.”

“I'll get my guys to check the handle for prints,” he continues with the same unusual lack of urgency that I've noticed several times since he arrived. And then, as he's done several times already, he takes a moment to look me up and down. “So you're going to the hospital when the paramedics get here, right?”

“I don't want to,” I tell him, before feeling another flicker of pain in my side. “But on this occasion, I think I'd better suck it up and at least get myself checked over. My agent -”

I wince as the pain returns, and I have to admit that it feels a little stronger this time.

“I'll go,” I add, choosing to speak as little as possible.

“Your description of this woman,” Robinson continues, checking his notebook once more, “makes her sound almost... I hate to use this word, Mr. Linton, but you make her sound almost savage. Like something wild and feral that emerged from the forest.”

“Maybe.”

“And your house is very new and modern,” the detective points out, glancing around. “Are you sure your attacker wasn't wielding an animal bone?”

I look up at him.

“Just an attempt to lighten the mood,” he adds. “My point is, we're not used to crazed people coming out of the forest in these parts. Do you think she might be some... homeless or transient individual who was merely passing through the area?”

“How should I know?” I ask.

“You said you'd been out for several hours at dinner with your agent. You're a writer of some sort, I believe?”

“Of some sort.”

“What I'm getting at is that your daily routines are probably quite... predictable?”

I nod.

“But do you usually go out in the evenings when you're staying here?”

I shake my head.

“So this individual, if they'd been observing you, would have probably assumed you were at home tonight.”

“Probably,” I reply, before pausing for a moment. “Do you think they've been observing me? If they had, they'd have seen that my car was gone tonight.”

“Good point,” Robinson agrees. “So they most likely thought the place was empty after all. What if they found that the back door was open and let themselves in? What if they just wanted some creature comforts and perhaps to steal anything worth stealing? And then you came home, this individual hid for a while, and then they panicked. You don't have any cameras on the property, Mr. Linton?”

“I've never thought I needed them.”

“You might want to look into that,” he says before glancing at the window as the flashing blue lights of an ambulance approach the front of the house. “Looks like the cavalry's here. My men need to take a look around and I'll need to speak to you again tomorrow, Mr. Linton. But I don't want you to worry, because in my experience, incidents like this are usually entirely opportunistic. Whoever your attacker is, they're probably a long way from here by now.”

“I hope so,” I reply, feeling utterly humiliated by the fact that I have to go to the hospital. “I thought this was a nice quiet area,” I add, unable to shift a sense of profound irritation as I realize that this Robinson guy doesn't seem like a daring hot-shot detective who's gonna solve the case in a flash. “Now I'm starting to wonder just what the hell's going on.”

Chapter Nineteen

As if filled with the need to become an absolute perfect cliché, the baby over by the doorway has been crying for at least ten minutes now. Everyone here in the hospital's A&E department is clearly on the verge of screaming at the damn thing, but we're all walking wounded and I guess we just have to suffer until we're eventually seen.

Having been triaged, I've clearly been written off as no kind of emergency. I don't know how long I'm going to have to sit here and wait to be seen by an actual doctor, but judging by the state of the other patients around me I think I'll be here for a while.

Glancing at the woman opposite, for example, I see that she's holding some kind of ice pack against a large cut on the side of her face. She must be at least sixty and she's in a wheelchair, so I'm sure she'll be seen before me. In fact, most of the people sitting here look to be in a far worse state than I am. I already googled emergency room waiting times in this part of the country and the numbers were horrific. I read about one person who had to wait more than thirty-six hours before eventually giving up.

I look at my watch.

Two hours.

That's how long I've been here so far.

This place – with its walking wound and its screaming children – is my idea of Hell.

“Been in the wars?” a voice asks.

Turning, I see a painfully thin elderly man sitting next to me. Just as I'm about to ask him what's wrong, I glance at his hand and see a large nail running straight through the palm and out the other side.

“This is why you don't do D.I.Y. at night,” he continues. “I couldn't sleep, though, so I figured I'd get up and make a start on all the shit my wife wanted me to do in the morning. Now look at me. And of course the wine thinned my blood and made me bleed even more.”

Staring at the nail, I realize that there's surprisingly little blood considering he's got a full-blown stigmata-style wound.

“What about you?” he asks.

“Just some... bad luck,” I reply.

As those words leave my lips, I can't help but realize that something else is wrong. I'm exhausted and drained, yet I feel utterly wired and I keep thinking about those cops poking around in my house. In my mind's eye I can already see them dusting every surface for prints and shining their little flashlights into every crevice. I know they're only searching for clues, and I also know that they seemed about as effective as a chocolate teapot, but at the back of my mind I hate the idea of them wandering around in my home. I should at least have insisted on waiting until they were done before allowing the ambulance crew to bring me here.

Hearing the doors opening, I turn to see two men helping an old woman through. She's wearing a nightgown, she looks utterly confused and blood is running from a nasty wound on one side of her head.

Great.

Another queue jumper.

She'll be treated before me, so that's probably at least half an hour added to the seemingly infinite waiting time that even now is stretching ahead of me like some kind of yellow shit road. And even if I do eventually get looked at properly, I'll probably just end up on a bed in some corridor somewhere.

“I've been using that same nail gun for years,” the man next to me says. “Never had a problem. I don't know what went wrong tonight, but I sure as hell screwed up. I'll tell you something, though. If I have to wait much longer, I might just nip to the loo and pull the damn thing out myself. Then I can pour some antibac on it and just go home. I swear these hospital waiting rooms do more harm than good.”

In that moment, the coughing woman nearby launches into another burst, and as before she doesn't even bother to cover her mouth. I'm no prude, but I can't help imagining all the germs bursting from that woman's throat and spraying across half the room.

“I'll probably catch something else just sitting here,” the man says. “If that's not -”

“I'm off,” I say, hauling myself up and lying to myself that I already feel slightly better.

“You are?”

“I'm not sitting around here for potentially another day or day and a half,” I tell him, wincing once more as the pain returns to my ribs. “I've got a book to write. You can have my spot, if it helps.”

“I envy you,” he says as I start shuffling away. “If I left early, my Gladys would kill me. I'd love to be in control of my own life, the way you are.”

“Yeah, sure,” I mutter under my breath.

As I head to the door, I see a crying young boy being brought in with burns on his arm. That's another one who'd be treated before me, so the kid's arrival just proves that I'm making the right decision. Besides, I keep thinking about Robinson and those cops constantly digging through my house and I hate the idea of them sticking their noses into places that frankly are none of their business.

If Robinson's right and my attacker was just some drifter who's long gone, then what's the point in fussing? Time heals everything. Even a few cracked ribs.

Chapter Twenty

“What the...”

As soon as I reach the cafe's counter the following morning, I realize that any attempt to hide my injuries was in vain from the start.

“What happened to you, Mr. Linton?” Sophie gasps, hurrying around and immediately grabbing my arm like I'm some decrepit old man. “Were you in a car crash?”

“Nothing quite so dramatic,” I tell her as I ease myself onto a stool.

“Did you fall down the stairs?”

I open my mouth to reply, before turning and seeing her beautiful young face staring at me with an expression of genuine concern.

“Did I fall down the stairs?” I ask.

“Did you slip in the shower?”

“Did I -”

Stopping myself, I can't help but sigh.

“I'm not that old!” I protest. “What would you say if I told you that actually I got in a fight at a bar? And what would you say if I told you that I won that fight, and that the other guy was some drunk loser who got carted off to the hospital?”

“Is that what happened?”

I briefly consider lying.

“No,” I admit, “but it's at least possible.”

I follow her with my eyes as she walks back around to her side of the counter.

“I got attacked,” I add. “In my own home, as it happens. You haven't heard about any feral cave-woman style people hanging around in the forest, have you?”

“A cave-woman?”

“She was completely naked and she looked like she'd been through the wars,” I explain. “I don't know, I'm starting to think she was just some transient drug addict who wanted to see if I'd left any cash around.”

“And this happened last night?” she replies, heading to one of the machines. “Do you want your usual?”

“Please,” I murmur. “Yeah, it happened last night. I got home after having dinner with my agent, and boom, this mad bitch just goes for me. To be honest, I don't remember all of it but she was extremely violent. I got knocked out and then when I woke up, she was gone. That supports the idea that she was just some opportunistic thief rather than an out-and-out killer.”

I pause, and in that moment I realize that I just admitted I got beaten up by a woman. I know that in these enlightened times I shouldn't feel any less masculine about that, but at the same time there's still a part of me that wants Sophie to think I'm a man's man. I should at least be able to defend myself.

“She got the jump on me,” I add. “She was lucky. Nine times out of ten I'd have been able to restrain her.”

“I can't believe this happened to you,” she continues. “I've never heard of anything like that happening in this area. Damn it, now you're making me think I shouldn't even sleep with my window open at night.”

“Maybe you shouldn't,” I suggest, before glancing over my shoulder as I hear the door opening. “You never know what -”

In that moment I'm shocked to see Detective Inspector Robinson again, although I immediately realize that he looks just as shocked by my presence.

“Mr. Linton,” he says cautiously. “Back from the hospital so soon?”

“Special treatment,” I lie, and of course at that very moment one of my damaged ribs decides to pipe up, sending a ripple of pain through my side. “One of the nurses was a fan. Some people'll do anything for a signed copy.”

“I see,” he replies, before stepping over and joining me at the bar. “I'm actually here to see young Ms. Thompson.”

“Me?” Sophie says innocently, looking first at him, then at me, then at him again. “I didn't do anything!”

Chapter Twenty-One

“So you haven't seen Mr. Taylor since the last time he came in here?” Robinson says a few minutes later. “Not even in passing in the street?”

He took Sophie to the other end of the cafe and he's been keeping his voice lowered, but I've heard every single word of their conversation. Apparently Zachary Taylor – aka young Zac the neanderthal tree surgeon who was here at the cafe the other day – hasn't been seen or heard from for a while, and now the police are checking to see whether he might have disappeared. I can't say that I'm particularly bothered, and frankly the world might be a better place if oafs like Zac started vanishing, but I don't like Robinson's tone as he continues to question Sophie.

Sure, he keeps insisting that he's only nosing around, but I can't shake the feeling that he almost seems to suspect her of some kind of foul play.

“How would you describe your relationship with Mr. Taylor?” he continues.

“We've seen each other on and off,” she says evasively, and it's plainly obvious – to me, if not to Robinson – that she and Zac have been an item in the past. “It's never been, like, official, but we've... hung out.”

“I'm sorry to have to ask this, Ms. Thompson,” he goes on, “but has your relationship ever become... physical?”

“Do you mean, have we had sex?” she asks. “Yeah, a few times. But we were never boyfriend and girlfriend or anything like that. It was always more just... convenient.”

Biting my bottom lip, I look down at my tea. The idea that a pretty, smart girl like Sophie is wasting her life serving drinks in this rundown cafe while occasionally hooking up with a loser like Zac is just... too much to take in. The universe is fundamentally unfair and someone really ought to come along and rescue her from such a sad, meandering life.

Hell, if I could snap my fingers and become five years younger, I'd do it myself.

As she and Robinson continue to talk, I surreptitiously look over at her. I can't help wondering whether she might actually like slightly older men after all, especially if she's so accustomed to young, untrustworthy pieces of trash like Zac. I'm not so deluded that I think I could ever make a pass at her, but at the same time part of me wonders whether I could save her after all.

If I was five minutes younger...

“Thank you for your time,” Robinson says, slipping his notebook away.

“Are you sure Zac didn't just get a job somewhere else?” she asks as she goes over to check one of the coffee machines. “He often talks about leaving town and starting a new life somewhere. What if he just... did that?”

“We're considering all possibilities,” he tells her, before wandering over to join me. “I was going to call you later, Mr. Linton,” he adds. “I wanted to show you something.”

Reaching into his pocket, he pulls out a photo of a smart, well-dressed young woman with dark hair.

“Could this be the individual who attacked you last night?”

Taking the photo, I peer at it. In truth, this woman is so well put together that I can't really answer his question.

“The hair color looks the same,” I tell him, “but apart from that... I honestly don't know. The woman last night was thinner and... wilder, somehow.”

“Worth a try,” he mutters, taking the photo back from me.

“Who is she?” I ask.

“Just a missing person,” he admits. “It was a bit of a stab in the dark but I thought I should check. Lindsay Asher vanished six months ago and there hasn't been a trace of her since. The idea that she'd emerge from the forest like that after so long is a long shot, but we live in hope. Sometimes long shots pay off.”

“I really don't think that's her,” I tell him, feeling a little more certain now. “I can't put my finger on it, but the face doesn't look quite the right shape.”

“Like I said, it was a long shot,” he says with a sigh, before hesitating for a moment. “Can I give you some advice, Mr. Linton?”

“Go for it.”

“Don't hold your breath waiting for us to solve this,” he continues. “I know I really shouldn't admit this, but our resources are stretched as it is. We don't have some C.S.I. style lab where we can test every sample in a matter of minutes. We have other cases that are higher priority, so please don't expect results. I'm just telling you this because sometimes it helps people to move on. Now, my experience tells me that your attacker is long gone by now. She won't be back. Strictly off the record, my advice to you would be to get some new locks, install a few cameras and just... get on with your life.”

“I'll do all those things,” I tell him. “Thanks for the honesty.”

As he leaves the cafe, I can't help but mull over the advice he just gave me. To be honest, I'm more than a little taken aback, but I guess the guy's just a realist and he was being pragmatic. And to be honest, I can't afford to let anything distract me from the book that still very conspicuously needs to be written.

“Another tea?” Sophie asks.

“Actually, I think I'd better get home,” I reply, easing myself slowly and very painfully up from the stool. I really hope these ribs start to heal soon. “Same time again tomorrow?”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Several hours later, once I've returned home and started working at the kitchen table, I actually start to feel a little better. I've found a way to sit that minimizes the pain in my ribs, and I guess there's something comforting about the familiar sound of my fingers tip-tapping away at the laptop's keyboard.

Hell, if I keep this up, I might actually beat my deadline and get this revised version of the book to Stacy ahead of schedule. And of course this time it'll be typo free, so she can shove those particular concerns up her backside.

Reaching a natural break point, I sigh and lean back in my office chair. I might not have quite hit my groove today – probably because of the lingering pain from last night's events – but at least I've been able to write, and I feel absolutely certain that I'm steering the novel back onto its proper path. Part of me wants to call Stacy and gloat over the phone, but I guess it'd be better to wait until the whole damn thing is finished. Then I can deliver the document in person and watch as she reads the first few pages, and then I suppose I might just demand an apology for all her doubt.

I sit in the silence of the house for a moment, before leaning forward to start typing again. Another flicker of pain darts up through my ribs but I tell myself that I'm a big boy.

And then I hear it.

Something bumps briefly and I immediately turn and look out toward the hallway. Ordinarily I'd barely have noticed that noise but right now I'm more vigilant than ever. And despite the niggling pains all over my body, I grip the sides of the chair for a moment before slowly lifting myself up.

Damn it, that hurts.

A lot.

I limp to the door and look over at the bottom of the staircase. I'm not certain, but I think the bumping sound came from somewhere down here. It definitely wasn't upstairs, although at the same time I'm not entirely sure that I can place it. A few seconds later, however, I notice that the door to the basement has been left slightly unlatched. I vaguely remember seeing one of Robinson's men going down there, but as I head over and pull the door open I still can't be sure that the sound came from below.

I switch the light on and look down the concrete steps, and then – because I'm just that much of a glutton for punishment – I force my battered body to make the climb down.

“Damn it,” I mutter as my damaged ribs jostle for space.

Once I'm in the cramped basement, I look around but I see nothing other than the few mostly empty shelving units I installed years ago. In truth I barely ever use the basement and for the most part the place has been left as a dusty void. There's certainly nowhere for any crazed forest-dwelling lunatics to hide, but I still take a shuffling walk around the cold, damp space just to prove to myself that there's no reason to be concerned.

An old box of items from the house in London is leaning against the wall in one corner, but overall the basement is just about the least intimidating or menacing part of the entire place.

Figuring that I perhaps imagined the bump, I turn and start making my way slowly and painfully back up the stairs. At the top, I switch the light off and push the door shut. Then, as I turn to go back to the kitchen, I freeze as I hear the bump again. And this time, I think I can tell exactly where it's coming from.

Chapter Twenty-Three

By the time the sun has started to set, I realize that I've now been sitting in my dark and silent car for at least three hours.

I came out here because I wanted to watch the house. After hearing a couple more of those strange bumping sounds, I went back down into the basement and took another good look around. I was convinced that the sound had come from down there, yet I found nothing untoward. Once I was back in the hallway, however, I told myself that there was no way I could simply sit down and work, so I came up with another plan instead.

I switched all the lights on downstairs and I came out here to sit in the car, and now I'm waiting for...

For what?

In truth, I don't really know, but I'm convinced that something had to be making those occasional noises in the house. I can see the living room and part of the kitchen from here, as well as most of the hallway. In my mind's eye, I've been imagining the sight of that freakish naked woman appearing again, or perhaps some of the more ghostly figures I noticed earlier, and I'm torn between expecting one of two possible outcomes: either something will appear, in which case I can take photos and call the police, or nothing will happen and I'll have to accept that my assault last night has left me feeling more than a little jumpy.

I'm honestly not sure which of those possibilities I'd prefer. Would I rather that I'm mad or that the rest of the world has lost its collective shit? I can't be certain, but I have a sense that personal madness might at least be more comforting.

At least I've got some decent cameras coming soon.

I can't deny that the past three hours have passed very slowly. I don't even want to take my phone out, in case the light from the screen somehow gives away my location. I can usually amuse myself by thinking about plots and characters, but tonight I feel much more alert than usual and I can't quite distance myself properly from the rest of the world.

A moment later I turn and look past the house, watching the darkness of the forest. I'm not quite sure what just attracted my attention, but it's as if – at the very periphery of my senses – I somehow picked up on something.

So far I don't see anything at all, but a moment later I'm just about able to see a dark figure scurrying away from the treeline and disappearing behind the side of my house. I immediately tense every muscle in my tattered body, but the figure has already disappeared from view. Although I wasn't able to make out any details at all, I can't help but assume that it was the naked woman again.

“My experience tells me that your attacker is long gone by now,” I hear Robinson's voice saying, echoing through to me from this morning. “She won't be back.”

So much for that theory.

I sit in silence for a few seconds, trying to work out what to do next. I could call the police, of course, but I'm not entirely convinced that they'd even bother coming out. They certainly wouldn't be quick, and it's not as if I have any evidence that something's up. I know I locked the house up properly before I came out here, so I quickly alight upon a quite different plan.

I'm going to stay right here and I'm going to wait to see what happens. After all, I'm fairly sure that the intruder won't know that I'm here, and the car doors are locked tight. In my current battered state I wouldn't be able to defend myself too well. Plus, I can drive away at the first sign of trouble. It's in that moment that I realize I should have set up some cameras inside the house and streamed the footage to my phone but, well, that's always a possibility for another day. Besides, the shitty potato-quality cameras I already own wouldn't be much use for that.

I need to wait for the proper gear to arrive.

Sliding down a little in my seat, I continue to watch the house and I half expect to see the crazed naked woman suddenly appearing inside, bathed in the light of the living room.

Instead several minutes pass and absolutely nothing happens. I keep replaying the sight of the woman over and over again, wondering whether there's any way that I might be mistaken; I don't think I got it wrong, yet I suppose anyone can be tricked by the occasional shadow.

Finally, just as I'm starting to wonder whether I should go out there and take a look, I spot the dark figure again. It – she? - is slowly walking around from the other side of the house. I watch as the figure stops in front of the living room window, and now I can't help but wonder exactly what it's doing. Is it looking for me? Is it trying to find some way inside? Is -

Suddenly a small light appears.

I tilt my head, trying to work out exactly what's happening. Sitting up slightly, I furrow my brow as the figure moves in front of the brightly-lit living room window. The silhouette really doesn't give me any more information, but a moment later I realize that this person appears to be holding up a phone – and they're taking photos of the inside of my house.

“What the fuck?” I whisper, leaning forward. “What the actual -”

In that moment I bump against the horn, and the car lets out a blaring noise. I see the figure turn and look this way; I can't make out its features still, but a moment later I try to stop the horn, only to accidentally switch on the headlights. Panicking, I then try to grab my own phone so that I can take a photo of the intruder, but a moment later I look out at the house and see that the figure is gone.

I look toward the forest, and sure enough I spot a dark shape racing away between the trees.

“Damn it!” I hiss as I realize that I just missed a golden opportunity to figure out exactly what the hell is going on here.

Finally switching the horn and the lights off, I lean back in my seat and let out a long, heavy sigh. I can't be certain, but I'm fairly sure that I just scared the intruder away and – in the process – made it abundantly clear that I'm now setting traps. At the same time I can't work out whether the crazy naked woman would actually possess a phone, in which case I'm left to contemplate a deeply uncomfortable question:

Do I have two intruders poking around at my house and, if so, are they working together?

Chapter Twenty-Four

My feet crunch against the forest floor as I pick my way through the darkness, with only the light from a small flashlight to guide my path.

I know I've almost certainly lost track of whoever was poking around outside my house about twenty minutes ago, but I felt that I had to at least come and take a look. Stopping between two bushes and shining the flashlight's beam all around, however, I see only dead-looking trees standing to strict attention all around me. I look the other way and see the same, with just a hint of the house in the distance.

A moment later I switch the flashlight off and stand in darkness, hoping to perhaps hear some hint of the intruder.

This late at night, the forest is a creepy place. I've always loved that fact that the house is so far out away from civilization and I never worried before about the isolation, but I've got to admit that right now I'm hyper aware of the fact that I'm so very far from any other human beings.

Well, in theory, anyway.

Somewhere in the distance an owl hoots, or at least I think it's an owl. I look around again, watching the darkness, but it's clear that I'm engaged in a completely pointless pursuit.

And then, a moment later, I hear the distinct sound of a car door slamming shut.

Following the source of that sound – or at least trying to – I keep the flashlight switched off as I hold my hands out and try to avoid bumping into any of the trees. I know the road leading to my place twists and winds through the forest, and I'm fairly sure that the slamming car door came from somewhere close to the junction with the main route into town. For the next couple of minutes I make my way through the forest, trying to stick to a straight line, and sure enough I finally spot a light up ahead.

Slowing a little, I try to stay hidden even though I'm fairly sure that I'm impossible to see in this darkness. I can see the light of a car now, seemingly parked by the side of the main road. Ducking down, I drop to my knees and peer at the car, and it's only now that I realize it's not actually a car at all.

It's some kind of van.

And I recognize the person sitting alone in the driver's seat.

I don't know why he's out here, but Zac – the same Zac who was harassing Sophie, the same Zac who Robinson seemed to think is missing – is now sitting in his van and looking at his phone. The more I look at him, the more I try to compare him with the figure I just caught running from my place, and I feel a shiver run through my bones as I realize that they're definitely one and the same. I have absolutely no idea what this cretin's up to, but I'm pretty sure that this is something Robinson would like to know.

Reaching into my pocket, I take out my phone. I know this is a risk, but Zac seems focused on his own device. I bring up the camera app and zoom in on the front of the van, and then I take half a dozen photos. When I check them back, I see that they're pretty clear; certainly clear enough for anyone to be able to identify Zac Taylor.

A moment later he glances around, as if he half senses that he's being watched. He doesn't actually look this way, however, and instead he starts the van's engine. He slowly turns the vehicle around and drives away, leaving me on my knees in the forest.

“What are you up to?” I whisper as his van's lights disappear into the distance. “What the hell were you doing out here tonight on my property?”

Chapter Twenty-Five

The house's front door swings shut and I find myself standing in the empty hallway.

“Hello?” I almost call out, just because I feel as if I should double-check that there are no strange naked women hanging around. “If someone's here, can we just get this over with? Just attack me already. It's not like I can put up much of a fight.”

I hesitate, but finally I decide to stay silent.

Making my way to the kitchen, I tell myself that I can perhaps allow myself to have one more glass of wine before I turn in for the night. Alcohol has always soothed me and, besides, it also helps with the pain in my ribs. There's already a bottle open on the counter, so I pour the remains out into an unwashed glass and then I raise it to my lips, ready to -

Suddenly something bumps loudly, and this time there can be no doubt.

It's in the basement.

I look down at the kitchen floor and listen to a series of muffled bumps. I could try to tell myself that the house is settling or that I have a mouse problem, but deep down I already know with absolute certainty that this sound is being caused by a human being.

Setting my glass down, I walk quietly back to the hallway and stop to listen. The sound stops for a few seconds before returning, this time as a series of slightly irregular thuds. There are no windows in the basement so there's no way anyone could be trying to break in down there, but there's also no reason why anyone should be in the house at all.

My first thought is to call the police, so I take my phone out. At the last second, however, something holds me back and I realize that the police would undoubtedly take too long to get here. I haven't even sent the photos of Zac to anyone yet. Feeling as if part of my mind is very keen for me to explore for myself, I instead set the phone down and walk to the door under the stairs, which I then pull open to reveal the steps leading down into the basement.

The bumping sound continues, but a moment later I switch the light on down there and the sound abruptly comes to a complete halt.

“Hello?” I say cautiously.

I wait for any hint of a response, before grabbing the baseball bat that a friend jokingly gave me when I first bought this place. We laughed about the idea of me needing something like this, but I've kept it in the hallway ever since and for the first time I'm actually glad that it's here.

Slightly against my better judgment, I start very slowly making my way down the steps. I have no idea if the crazy naked woman is about to show up again, but I tell myself that at least this time I'm armed. Reaching the bottom of the steps, however, I venture around into the main part of the basement and see that once again there's no sign of anyone here.

And the sound, which stopped when I turned the light on, remains gone.

“Hello?” I say again, feeling slightly stupid as I stand here with the baseball bat.

Hearing no reply, I step out across the cracked concrete floor. The basement is pretty cold and definitely not somewhere I'd usually spend much time. I spot the boxes in the corner, but otherwise there's really very little down here. I turn all the way around, and then – looking at the boxes again – I realize that the dust on the floor around them has been disturbed, almost as if...

Almost as if they've been moved recently.

I make my way over and use my right foot to gently slide the boxes out of the way. My heart is really racing now, and sure enough after a few seconds I spot what appears to be some kind of hatch or panel in the wall. I swear I've never seen this before in my life, and when I reach down I see that there's a padlock holding the damn thing shut.

Taking my keys out, I spot the small golden specimen that I've never used before. Slipping it into the padlock, I give it a turn and sure enough it works; the padlock springs open and I'm left to wonder quite why I have this key in the first place.

I carefully remove the padlock, and then I pull on the door, swinging it open to reveal nothing but darkness on the other side. This hatch is only about three feet high, so I have to bend down to have any chance of looking through it properly. As I reach for my flashlight, however, I'm suddenly struck by the foulest stench imaginable. I'm no expert on such things, of course, but I swear this smells like rotten vegetation mixed with sweat and human excrement and all sorts of other things that I don't even want to think about.

“What the hell's going on down here?” I whisper.

I know I should go upstairs and call the police and let them handle the situation, but some part of me is urging me to do the opposite. I hesitate for a few seconds, trying to figure out the best course of action, yet already curiosity is starting to get the better of me. Crouching down, I lean toward the opening and switch the flashlight on, casting its beam into the hidden space on the other side.

Chapter Twenty-Six

“What the actual...”

As I tilt the flashlight, I'm shocked by the sheer size of what appears to be a large secret room beneath my house. I see lots of pipes on the walls, and counters with items piled high. There's even an old office chair that has been left in one of the corners, and a noticeboard on the far wall appears to have lots of scribbles.

I lean forward and shine the flashlight around some more, and I'm relieved to see that there's no sign of anyone in here. Feeling a little braver now, I step through the gap and stand up straight in the room, and already I'm starting to notice that the sickly sweet smell of human waste is so much stronger now. I have no idea what has been going on down here, but it's quite clear that the place hasn't been cleaned for a very long time.

Stepping across the room, I approach what appears to be a desk piled high with various books and papers. Looking down, I see scores of pencil-drawn sketches alongside books on a wide variety of subjects ranging from human anatomy to medieval philosophy. Some of these volumes look slightly familiar, but I'm sure I've never seen most of them before. It's as if someone has been working down here, however, even if I'm certain that there's no other way into or out of the basement.

Does all this stuff belong to whoever had the place before me?

A moment later, hearing a scratching sound, I spin round and shine the flashlight across the room. Now, for the first time, I see that there's another open doorway, this time leading into what can only be yet another hidden room down here.

“This is insane,” I whisper, somehow fighting the urge to turn and run.

Spotting a switch on the wall, I step over and give it a flick, and to my surprise it works: a solitary bulb flickers to life, lighting the room. I turn the flashlight off and put it away, and then I start slowly advancing toward the open doorway at the far end of the room. I'm still holding the baseball bat, and as I get close to the door I freeze as I realize that I can hear a sound coming from the void ahead.

Sobbing.

Somebody's sobbing in there.

“Who are you?” I call out before I have a chance to stop and wonder whether I'm making a mistake. “What are you doing in my house?”

I wait, but the sobbing only becomes more frantic.

As much as I know that I should go upstairs and call the police, some inner drive forces me to step into the open doorway. Staring straight ahead into the darkness, I listen as the sobbing continues. I reach around and run my hand across the wall, and sure enough I quickly find another switch. I hesitate, wondering whether I really want to see what's going on in here, and then – at the last second – I glance down and see a bare human foot down on the floor, extending out from the darkness.

I instinctively step back. Staring at the foot, I see that it's horribly cut and damaged, perhaps even broken, with heavy bruises all around the sole. Some of the toes are quite clearly broken, and after a few seconds I'm struck by the sense that this is not the foot of someone who's still alive. This is part of a dead body.

Meanwhile the sobbing sound continues.

“Who's there?” I ask, and now I can hear real fear in my own voice. “Who... who are you? What the hell's going on down here?”

I wait, but I'm pretty sure now that I'm never going to get any sensible answers. I reach out and find the light switch again, and after a moment of hesitation I force myself to flick the switch.

This time there's a moment of doubt as the bulb in the room flickers and seems to be contemplating failure. Finally it comes on, however, and I find myself staring at the most horrific sight I've ever encountered in my life.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

I take a step back, but I know that there's no running from this. Already the images are flooding into my eyes, into my mind, and I know that there's no going back.

All around the surprisingly large room, about half a dozen naked women have been left on the floor. Bloodied and bruised, and quite clearly dead, they're each manacled to the wall thanks to metal cuffs that someone has put around their wrists. Some of the women have very obvious injuries, with huge chunks having been gouged out of their chests and faces, while others seem to have been merely stabbed and cut, but there's blood everywhere and I'm fairly sure that I can also smell various other bodily fluids.

Leaning the baseball bat against the wall, I tell myself that this can't be real, but a moment later I realize that the sobbing sound hasn't stopped.

Looking around again, I finally see that one of the bodies at the far end of the room has its back turned to me, and I realize to my horror that she's shaking slightly.

“Who are you?” I gasp, stepping over some of the other – very obviously dead – women and then crouching down next to the only one showing any signs of life. “What the hell are you doing down here?”

I reach out to touch her shoulder. At the last second, however, her terrified eyes turn and see me, and she reacts with a furious kick that sends me falling back.

Landing partially on top of one of the corpses, I reach out to steady myself and then I pull my hand away as I realize that I've touched the open abdomen of a dead woman. Ahead of me, meanwhile, the sole survivor is trying to curl up into the tightest ball possible as she forces herself into the corner. The chain holding her against the wall jangles loudly and now I realize that every atom of her body appears to be shaking. She's painfully thin, with her bare flesh barely stretching across patches of sharp bones.

“Who are you?” I ask again, still trying to make sense of this madness. “What are you doing in my basement?”

Realizing that she's in no fit state to answer, I stumble to my feet. My hand is covered in blood now and I want to go upstairs and call the police, but at the last second I freeze as I realize that I've seen the sobbing woman before. Looking down at her, I try to convince myself that I'm wrong, but finally I have no choice: I have to accept that this is the exact same crazed and angry woman who attacked me upstairs, and who damn near killed me before she knocked me out and vanished.

“What are you doing here?” I ask, stepping closer again and looking down at her face. “Hey! Can you please say something?”

Now that I'm able to see her better, I notice that someone has tied some kind of strap over her mouth, and I think there might be a ball under there as well. Whatever's going on, she clearly can't get a word out, although her terrified eyes are staring at me as if she's gripped by utter madness. Looking down at her, I still can't quite believe that any of this is happening, but I slowly step forward and make my way around behind her.

Her sobbing becomes louder and more frantic, and she tries again to pull away.

“It's okay,” I tell her, “I won't hurt you. I just... I need to get you out of here, okay? I need to figure out what the hell's going on.”

Taking care to remain out of range of more kicks, I kneel behind her. My damaged ribs are still screaming with pain but right now I barely even notice. I can see the thick knot that's holding the woman's gag in place, and I know I need to get that off her, but I still hold back for a moment. Glancing around, I once again see the dead women and now I spot one whose glassy eyes are looking up at the ceiling. Her mouth is wide open, as if she died in agony, and thick blood has dried all down her chin and on her chest.

I look at another of the corpses and see that both her eyes are missing, as if they've been gouged out.

“What the hell is this place?” I whisper, before looking down at the sobbing woman again.

After swallowing hard, I reach out and start to untie the knot. She tries to pull away as soon as she realizes that I'm touching her, but I force myself to keep going and finally I'm able to pull the entire gag aside. Part of the corded section is stuck to her matted hair, but after a few more seconds I'm able to toss the gag onto the floor.

“Listen,” I continue, “what the -”

“Help me!” she screams, spraying blood from her mouth all across the wall as she turns and looks toward the door. “I'm in here! Please, somebody help me! Somebody get me away from him!”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

“Wait, listen to me!” I shout, trying to maintain some degree of control over the situation. “I'm going to get you out of here but -”

“Help me!” she shouts at the top of her voice, and I can't believe that the sheer volume isn't shredding her throat. “Help -”

“Be quiet!” I hiss, clamping a hand over her mouth and holding her tight as she starts to struggle. “Are you crazy? I don't know who put you down here but they might come back at any moment! I need to get you out of here before that happens so that -”

Before I can finish, she bites down hard on my hand. Letting out a pained gasp, I try to pull away but her teeth are sinking too deep into my palm. Finally I yank my hand out, but I feel a tearing sensation and I look down to see that some of the flesh has been ripped away from the base of my thumb. Blood is already running freely down to my wrist.

I turn to the woman just in time to see her spitting out a chewed mass of meat.

“Help me!” she yells, and now she's rattling her chains as loudly as she can manage. “I'm down here! I'm in the basement!”

“Will you please shut the fuck up?” I hiss, trying to figure out whether I can possibly get the gag back into her mouth. “Listen, I just saw Zac driving away. If he's the one who put you down here – and I have no idea how he could have done that – then you have to realize that he might come back at any moment! We have to -”

“Help!” she sobs, and now her entire body is convulsing with fear. “Somebody help me!”

“I'm trying to help you!” I shout, struggling to maintain my composure. “Don't you get that?”

Reaching into my pocket, I take out my keys and again see the one that worked on the padlock. I look at the manacles shackling this poor woman to the wall, and I realize that they're using padlocks that appear to be exactly the same.

“Okay, I'm going to release you,” I tell her. “In order to do that I'm going to have to lean over you, okay? Can you please not bite me again?”

“Nobody's coming,” she whimpers as bloodied tears stream down her face. “Why can't you just kill me now? Why do you have to keep me alive like this?”

“I'm the one who's trying to save you,” I insist, before tentatively leaning over her and taking hold of the padlock. “I'm the one who -”

“You're the one who put me down here!” she snarls.

I start to slide the key into the padlock, and then I hesitate for a moment. I replay those eight words over and over in my mind, trying to make sense of them, and then when I look down at the woman I see her eyes – half terrified and half furious – glaring back up at me.

“What did you just say?” I stammer.

“Please just kill me,” she continues as her bottom lip trembles wildly. “Please, I'm begging you... just kill me like you killed all the rest.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

“I've... never seen you before in my life,” I tell her after a moment. “Not until you attacked me upstairs. Why the hell did you do that?”

“Just make it quick,” she cries. “Please, I just want it to be over with. I'm begging you, don't do the same things to me that you did to the others. When you made me watch how you killed the one over there... please don't do it to me. I'll do anything else you want, but please, just make it as quick as possible.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” I ask, and now I feel as if I'm trapped in some kind of madness. “I'm here to rescue you.”

“Is this another game?” she whimpers. “Are you trying to trick me? Why can't you just kill me?”

“Why would I want to kill you?” I reply, before slowly pulling the key away from the padlock. “You're not making any sense. I'm trying to save you, but you... you...”

As my voice trails off, I stare down at the woman and realize that something about this whole situation feels strangely and sickeningly familiar. I swear I've never been in this room before, yet as I look at the battered manacles strapped around her wrist I can't shake the sense that I've definitely seen those particular objects before. And as much as I want to open the padlock, deep down some inner part of my core is telling me that this would be a very bad idea. It's almost as if another version of me is hiding deep inside and struggling to influence my decisions.

I realize now that this inner voice has been whispering to me for a while now. It was this voice that persuaded me to not call the police tonight, and that told me I should instead pick up the baseball bat and come down here to explore the basement on my own. Now the voice is telling me that releasing this woman would be a very bad idea.

Instead, then, I slowly pull back from her as I try to work out exactly what I should do next.

“I just want to die,” she sobs frantically. “And then can you please leave my body where someone will find it? I don't want to rot down here like the others. I want my family to be able to bury me at least.”

“What... what are you talking about?” I ask as a cold sense of dread starts to ripple through my chest.

“I don't want to be like them,” she cries, looking past me. “Please, I don't want to be like your other victims.”

Turning, I look at the rest of the corpses. Again I'm struck by a sense of familiarity, as if there's some shadow of recognition in the back of my mind. I know I need to find answers, but even as I hear the sound of the woman's chains rattling I can't help but stare at the corpses and -

Suddenly the chain drops over my head and pulls tight around my throat, and I'm instantly pulled back as the woman twists the chain around and starts to throttle me.

“Die, you bastard!” she snarls. “I almost got you last time but I won't let you go again!”

I try to call out, to tell her that there's been some kind of mistake and that she has to stop, but I can't force any words from my lips at all. Instead I reach up and try to pull the chain free, even as she twists it tighter and tighter. Spluttering for air now, I try to lunge forward, but this woman is filled now with an almost superhuman level of strength, as if she thinks she's fighting for her life. My burning ribs, meanwhile, are so painful that I can barely struggle properly at all.

A moment later the chain loosens slightly as she reaches over me and tries to grab the keys.

Realizing that this is my chance, I slam myself against her, sending her crashing into the wall. The chain loosens a little more and I'm able to slip free. I stumble to my feet, but I immediately trip and fall down, landing on top of two of the other corpses. Disgusted by the stench of their partially rotten flesh, I roll over and look back at the woman in the corner – just as the pain in my ribs becomes more intense than ever.

A moment later I see that I dropped the keys. She notices them in that exact second too. I lunge forward and just manage to pluck them out of her reach and shove them back into my pocket.

Getting up, I back away across the room as I watch the woman furiously pulling again and again on her chain as if she thinks she can rip it away from the wall. There's something frantic and manic about her – which is understandable given her situation – but she also makes zero sense and I'm starting to wonder whether I can help her at all. Her mind must be completely wrecked and I think she needs proper help from a mental health professional, so after a few more seconds I mumble something about fetching help before hurrying out of the room.

Once I'm in the next part of the basement, I stop again and look at the various papers and books on the desk. I know I should go and call the police, but for a few seconds something holds me back: I pick up some of the papers and see lots of photos showing various women chained in the next room. Some of them seem to be alive, and a growing sense of dread creeps through me as I realize that I recognize several of the women as the ghostly figures I've seen a few times upstairs. A few more seconds later, however, another thud of shock hits me as I look at the annotations scribbled next to the images, complete with arrows pointing at spots on the photos showing injuries on the bodies.

This is my handwriting.

Chapter Thirty

Sitting in my car, I look out across the brightening car park and see Sophie turning the sign around on the cafe's door. She's right on time: it's eight in the morning and the sun came up a while ago, and I've been waiting for this moment.

Stepping out of my car, I take a moment to check that my clothes are clean and straight. After leaving the basement at home I showered and changed, and then I hurried out of the house. I left the woman down there in the basement because I honestly had no idea how to handle her. I know I need to make sense of all this madness but right now my head is spinning and I feel as if there's an explanation out here, one that's going to shuffle all the pieces of the mystery around and make them make sense.

I just have to be patient.

Checking my phone, I head toward the cafe. I catch my reflection in the window and instantly realize that I look jumpy as hell. As I walk, I try to relax, and by the time I open the cafe's front door and step inside I'm feeling more or less presentable. Telling myself that I can think here, that I can figure everything out, I head to the counter and spot Sophie standing over by the coffee machines.

And then I see Zac.

They're talking in hushed, urgent voices, but after a fraction of a second they both turn and look at me. In that instant I see a hint of concern in Sophie's eyes and a kind of hard suspicion in Zac's face. I can't be sure that they're talking about me, but I also wouldn't be surprised at all.

But why?

Why would they be talking about me?

As I step closer to the counter, I'm already starting to feel extremely uncomfortable. Sophie turns to Zac and whispers something, while he merely keeps his eyes fixed on me, almost if offering some kind of challenge. My first thought is that I should confront the issue head on and try to find out what's wrong, but instead I decide to try to play things cool. Taking a seat on the stool, I tell myself that while Zac is possibly a tough cookie, I should be able to get some answers from Sophie.

“I'll see you later,” he mutters, before turning and heading out through the back door.

“Hey, Mr. Linton,” Sophie says as she makes her way over, offering a broad smile. “You're earlier than normal. Do you want your usual?”

“Sure,” I reply.

I watch as she heads to the kettle. Bless her, she's trying to play this off as a completely normal situation, but after just a couple of seconds she fumbles one of the cups. I've never seen her like this before and I can tell that something's really bothering her, but I also know that I have to be careful about how I approach the situation.

“All good?” I ask.

“What?”

She spins round to face me so fast that she almost knocks a mug off the counter.

“I can't help but notice that you seem a little nervous,” I continue. “Your friend Zac's back, though. That's good, isn't it? Wasn't he missing?”

“That was a... miscommunication,” she says cautiously. “He's fine.”

“I saw.” I watch her eyes for a moment. “Is there anything I can help with? You know what they say, a problem shared is often a problem halved.”

“Everything's good,” she tells me. It's an obvious lie, but she seems determined. “I'll just... sort out your tea.”

“Sure,” I reply, before suddenly realizing that I might be making a huge mistake. “Actually,” I add, “there's been a slight change of plans this morning. Would you mind if I take that tea to go?”

Chapter Thirty-One

As soon as I drive round the corner and see the house ahead, I spot Zac's van and I realize that I was right. I bring my car to a halt and switch the engine off, and then as I climb out I see the man – boy, really – himself hurrying around from the back of the property.

“Good morning, Mr. Taylor,” I call out. “I wasn't expecting visitors today. To what do I owe this honor?”

It's clear that I've caught him off guard. When he saw me at the cafe, he clearly assumed that this would be his chance to really come and snoop around. Once I realized that, however, I hotfooted it back here and now I've caught him in the act.

“You know,” I continue, “this is private property.”

I glance at his van.

“I don't know exactly what services you offer,” I go on, “but I'm really not in the market to get any trees cut down.”

He stares at me, and then – as if he thinks he can just ignore me completely – he starts walking toward the van.

“I know you were here last night,” I add. “I saw you. If there's anything you want to ask me, you might as well just do it direct to my face.”

“I've got nothing to say to you,” he murmurs as he opens the van's door.

“But you've got things to say about me,” I point out. “What's the problem, Zac? I can call you Zac, can't I? What is it about me that you don't like?”

He's about to climb into the van, but at the last moment he hesitates briefly before turning to me.

“I like directness,” I continue. “And honesty.”

He glances around, but I can tell that there's something on his mind.

“I know about the girls,” he says finally.

I flinch as I think back to the five – is it five? - dead women in my basement, plus of course the very much alive woman still chained down there.

“I've been doing my research,” he continues, and his voice – usually so cocky and arrogant – betrays just a hint of nerves. “Seven girls have gone missing from this part of the county over the past year, and they've all be near here around the time it happened.”

“What has that got to do with me?” I ask.

“The police don't think they're linked,” he explains. “I went to them once and they treated me like I'm some kind of freak, but I know there's a connection. I've seen enough true crime documentaries to know how this stuff works. Someone kidnapped them all and... and did something to them. One of them was a good friend of mine, her name was Milly Hayes. Do you know Milly Hayes, Mr. Linton?”

“I don't, no.”

“Well, I think you're lying,” he goes on, clearly becoming angrier with each passing second. Indeed, I'm quite sure that he wouldn't be confronting me quite so directly if he had full control of his emotions. “I think you know where Milly and the others are, and I'm going to prove it.”

“That's quite the load of nonsense,” I tell him, before taking a step forward. “I -”

Suddenly pulling out a metal bar, he holds it up as if he intends to defend himself. For my part, I let out a gasp as I feel a slight pain from my damaged ribs, and I can't help but laugh as I realize that this damn fool is actually scared of me. I don't think I've ever scared anyone before in my entire life, but this Zac guy clearly thinks that I'm some kind of threat.

“You were trying to get into my house,” I observe, trying to play for time a little. “If you like, I can give you a guided tour. Would that put your mind at ease?”

I wait, and I can tell that he's trying to work out how to respond to my little offer. It's clear that I've put him slightly off-kilter but to be honest I too am trying to figure out how to turn the situation to my advantage.

Finally he climbs into the van and pulls the door shut.

“I'm watching you,” he sneers as he starts the engine. “If you've done anything to any of those girls, I'll find out and I'll make sure you go down for it. Just because you're this rich slick guy, that doesn't mean you can get away with stuff. The police said I didn't have any evidence when I went to them before, but now I've got a suspect. I'm gonna make then listen.”

I open my mouth to reply, but he's already starting to drive away.

Watching as his van disappears into the distance, I'm left wondering just why young Zac is so convinced that I've got anything to do with these apparent vanishings. He seems absolutely certain that I'm some kind of monster, and it would seem that he's managed to talk Sophie into sharing his concerns, although I imagine that – at least so far – the police aren't interested in the ramblings of some scrawny little moron. After all, Robinson had a chance to question me and he didn't mention anything at all.

And yet, as I turn and look back at the house, I can't help wondering whether Zac might have accidentally stumbled upon something after all.

“Slick?” I say finally, genuinely shocked by some of his accusations. “Me?”

Chapter Thirty-Two

Reaching down, I use my gloved hands to very slowly roll one of the rotten corpses over. She's in such a bad state that part of her face has congealed and is actually stuck to the concrete floor, and I have to apply a little extra pressure as I see strings of rancid meat stretching out from her features. Finally, however, I roll her onto her back and look down at what remains of her face.

As the other woman sobs in the corner, I look at the images of the missing girls on my phone. After just a few seconds I see that there's only one who in any way fits the physical attributes of the particular corpse in front of me.

“Lisa Miller,” I whisper.

That's five for five now. As I look around at the other corpse I've inspected, I realize with a growing sense of concern that five of the supposedly missing girls from the area certainly do appear to be in my basement. There are two more missing girls, named Olivia Douglas and Jessie Ballantyne, and while there's no sign of Olivia I'm fairly sure that Jessie is the whimpering girl in the far corner.

“Hey,” I say finally, hoping to prove my theory. “Jessie, is that -”

As soon as she hears that name, she turns and glares at me.

“I thought so,” I continue, trying to appear calm and in control as I get to my feet. “You're Jessie Ballantyne, aged twenty-one.”

I wait for some kind of answer, but she's shivering with fear and to be honest I don't blame her. As much as I don't quite understand yet what's happening here, it's clear that this whole set-up in the basement has been here for quite a while. And while I should probably have called the police by now, some sense of self-preservation is kicking in and I really want to know what's going on here before I start involving any outsiders.

First, I need answers.

“Hey,” I say again, “I need to talk to you.”

I wait for an answer, and then I snap my fingers.

“Listen,” I add, “I don't know quite what the arrangement has been, but if you answer a few questions I'll... I'll give you some extra food or something, okay? And I'll find something for you to wear as well.”

I know how pathetic that offer must sound, but I have to find a way to get her to talk.

“Just tell me how you ended up here,” I continue. “I want to hear your version of it, that's all.”

Again I wait, but I really don't want to let this Jessie girl realize that I'm confused. I need to maintain the illusion of control, at least, because otherwise she might try to exploit any hint of desperation. After a moment I turn and head to the doorway, and I tell myself that I simply need to be patient and come up with some other ideas.

“Why?” she asks suddenly.

I stop and turn to see that she's glaring at me.

“Why haven't you killed me yet?” she asks, although she's shaking so much that she can barely get any words out at all. “Why are you torturing me?”

“So you can talk, it would seem,” I reply. “I'm curious and I want to hear your version of what has been happening to you. How long have you been here? I mean... how long do you think you've been here?”

I wait for an answer, and then I step back toward her.

“What -”

Before I can get another word out, she spits a mouthful of saliva and blood at me, hitting me in the face. I pull back and wipe the disgusting mess away, and for a moment I want to storm over to her and make her pay. At the last second, however, I hold back as I remind myself that above all else I have to seem like I'm in charge. That's my one advantage in this situation and I can't let go of it. Not yet.

“I'll be back down in a few hours,” I tell her. “I hope that by then you'll have reconsidered my very kind offer.”

Chapter Thirty-Three

“Fuck.”

Sitting at the kitchen table, I stare at the laptop's screen and see more information about one of the missing girls. I'm fairly sure that Alison Perlinger is the red-haired corpse in my basement, and to be honest the rest of the story about her doesn't seem particularly important right now. What's important is the fact that there are five dead girls in my basement plus a living girl and I need to figure out how they got there before I even think about calling the police. After all... this isn't a great look for me.

I know my memory has been bad lately, but can I really have forgotten all of this?

The idea is crazy, yet at the edges of my mind I keep experiencing these little moments of recollection. As I stare at a photo of the smiling, happy Ms. Perlinger, for example, I feel as if I've met her. I know the idea seems insane, but I have a single strong memory of talking to her by the side of a road somewhere, and I'm struggling to fit that memory into any other narrative that exists in my mind.

Meanwhile my father's words are echoing in my thoughts, and they seem to have taken on a whole new degree of relevance.

“I know what you are!” I remember him screaming at me once. “You're the main one! You want to steal my soul because you know I'm the only good one left! You're the king of all the demons!”

Another time he was even more direct.

“I can see past your eyes!” he sneered at me in his kitchen. “I can see the real you! I know what you've done!”

Did he know? In all the babbling madness that burst from his mouth while he was in the hospital, in all the insanity that was part of his dementia, did he somehow also recognize some hidden truth about me?

Looking at my hands now, I find myself wondering whether I'm capable of all these things. Did I kidnap those women and keep them as prisoners in my basement? Did I really write all those notes in the other room down there? The handwriting certainly looks like mine, and somehow deep down I can't help but wonder whether I might actually be capable of something like this. After all, I've always been pretty good at coming up with gruesome scenes for my books. What if I've been getting the inspiration from whatever the hell is going on downstairs?

I don't know what's harder to believe: the idea that I did all these things, or the idea that I've forgotten it all.

I start searching up information about memory loss and the early stages of dementia. When Dad was getting ill, it was small things that he forgot at first, but I guess this sort of condition might affect everyone differently. As much as I've been trying to deny the truth, I have been losing chunks of my memory but this...

This seems bigger.

“Come on,” I murmur, scrolling through page after page of information about dementia, Alzheimer's and pretty much any kind of illness that might possibly explain what's happening to me.

After all, my own parents might have suffered from dementia, but that doesn't necessarily mean that I have to be dealing with the same thing. I might very well have developed my own problem completely independently of whatever ate through my parents' minds. I scroll and I scroll and I scroll, but nothing seems to quite fit and I certainly don't find anything that might explain how someone could forget being some kind of serial killer, and finally in frustration I slam the laptop closed and lean back in my chair.

I instantly see my own face reflected in the window, and I'm shocked by a hint of fear in my eyes. All through my life I've felt as if I'm in control, yet now I can feel everything crumbling away. At the heart of all the doubt, though, there's one disturbing fact that I can't escape.

I do think that I'm capable of this.

I've always been fascinated by death, and by torture, and by the awful things that people can do to one another. I could come up with a thousand possible origin stories for a character like me, for someone who eventually resorted to playing out the dark fantasies that were once merely inspiration for stories. Did I suddenly flip one day and start killing? The most rotten of the corpses in the basement looks to be about six months old, so did I start doing this back then or is it something that has been part of my life for even longer? I have so many questions and so far there seems to be no way to come up with any answers.

At least I seem to have found a way to minimize the fly problem down there.

Looking at the floor, I realize that I can't sit here letting this whole thing eat away at me. And when it comes to Jessie down in the basement, I think perhaps I might have gone about things the wrong way so far. Offering her food was never going to work; instead I need to offer her the one thing that she actually craves.

Chapter Thirty-Four

“Do you promise?” she whimpers, sniffing back more tears as she stares up at me from the corner of the basement. “Do you... do you really promise?”

“If you answer all my questions,” I reply, “then yes, I'll make it quick and painless. And I'll also make sure that your body is found so your family can bury you properly. I don't think I can be fairer than that.”

I wait for an answer, but now she's actually no longer shivering. Indeed, I'm already starting to think that this approach is working – and that I can proceed to the next phase.

“How did we meet?” I ask.

She stares at me, and then she turns and looks at one of the other corpses.

“My car broke down,” she says softly. “I had no battery on my phone and it was getting dark so I decided to try to walk to a petrol station or a town or... something. You drove past and offered to give me a lift, and I knew I shouldn't get in but... you never think these things will happen to you, do you? So I let you drive me, and then suddenly you put this wet thing over my mouth and -”

She stops suddenly, furrowing her brow before looking up at me.

“Why are you asking me this?”

“Humor me,” I say firmly.

“Then I woke up here,” she continues. “That other girl... Milly or whatever her name was... she was still alive at first. She told me how you do it. She told me that you make each new girl watch you kill the one before. I didn't believe her at first, but then you came down here and you lifted her up from behind and you gutted her like...”

Her voice trails off and I can tell that she's reliving that moment over and over. I wish I could do the same, but so far nothing is ringing any bells.

“Please don't do the same thing to me,” she sobs. “I'm so scared you're going to bring another girl down here at any moment and then I'll know it's my turn!”

“How long ago was that?” I ask.

“I don't know,” she says, shaking her head. “I've lost track.”

“Did I tell you why I was doing it?” I continue. “Or did I hint – consciously or subconsciously – at any kind of motivation?”

“What do you mean?”

“Just think!” I snap, before forcing myself to remain calm. “Just think of anything I did or said that might explain what's going on here. Even if it seems thin, even if you don't think it's right, just try to remember anything I mentioned about my reasons.”

She stares at me for a moment longer, and I swear I can see a hardening of her soul.

“You said you felt inadequate because of your tiny dick,” she says through gritted teeth, “and your pathetic life and your overwhelming sense of self-hatred.”

“I didn't say that,” I tell her confidently. “Come on, be serious. Did I ever hint at my motivation?”

“I... I don't know,” she says softly.

“The other girl,” I continue, looking over at the least rotten of the corpses. “Milly, right? She must have said something else to you, something that might explain it all.”

“She said you're evil.”

I turn to her again.

“She said you're pure evil,” she adds, “and that you know how to torture people. She said that you know exactly how to get into their heads and make it as bad as possible. And she was right about that, wasn't she? I had to watch you... doing things to her after she was dead.”

“What kind of things?”

“Don't make me say it.”

I open my mouth to do just that, to demand the details, but at the last moment I back down. There are some things so awful, so disgusting, that perhaps I need to build up to them.

“What else did she say?” I ask.

“She was begging to die,” she sobs, “just like I've been begging. I remember thinking she shouldn't have given up, I remember asking her to help me so that we could try to escape together, but she just said she wanted to die. I didn't understand, not at first.”

“But you did escape,” I point out. “The other night, you attacked me upstairs.”

“You came down here and did things to me,” she explains, “and you forgot to click the padlock back into place properly. You got sloppy for once and I took my chance. I thought I was going to get away but then you showed up. I attacked you, I thought I was going to kill you but at the last second you got a lucky punch. Then you brought me back down here.”

“I remember -”

Stopping myself, I realize that I still only remember part of that incident. I remember her attacking me, but nothing before or after. I can't quite believe that I actually called the police and they were looking around in the house, even in the other part of the basement, but I suppose I just got lucky. Either that, or they're completely incompetent.

Still, all jokes about idiotic policemen aside, I can't quite believe that they won't eventually establish a link between the D.N.A. they found upstairs and the D.N.A. of the missing girl right in front of me. Does that mean that I'm living on borrowed time now? Or does it mean that I just need to be smarter?

Turning, I head to the door.

“Where are you going?” Jessie asks.

“I need to think.”

“You promised to kill me,” she continues, and now her voice is trembling again. “You promised you'd do it as soon as we were finished talking.”

Stopping, I look back at her.

“You promised!” she screams, lunging at me, only for the chains to hold her back. “You swore you'd do it! You promised me! You -”

Chapter Thirty-Five

It's quite amazing that, now I'm up here, I can't hear that dumb girl screaming. I must have done a really good job sound-proofing the basement. I'm sure she's still shouting and shouting, but I honestly can't hear her at all. And the truth is, while I did promise to kill her in exchange for information, I'm not ready to go through with my side of the bargain yet. After all, I might still need her for one reason or another.

She can wait down there until I'm ready.

It's getting dark outside now. Heading to the kitchen, I tell myself that I need a glass of wine. I'm still trying to work out how the police haven't been onto me yet, and I'm also trying to work out why that Zac Taylor kid seems to have figured out what I'm up to. As I open another bottle of red, I feel as if there's some kind of blockage in my mind that's stopping me remembering all these very important things, and for some reason the blockage just won't budge. Even as I pour myself a glass of wine, I can't shake a sense of frustration.

I lift the glass to take a sip, and then – glancing at the window – I freeze as I see that I'm not alone.

Spinning round, I look back across the room but this time there's no sign of anyone. When I look at the window again, however, I see her.

She's one of the missing girls. Not Jessie, one of the others. Olivia? Yes, I think that was her name. Or was she the one who isn't in my basement? I wish I could remember the details. Either way, whoever she is... she's standing right behind me – at least in the reflection – and she's staring at me. I saw her before, she was standing in my bedroom, and now I'm starting to understand what was going on. I seem to be being haunted by the ghosts, real or imagined, of some of the girls I kidnapped. And as I stand here now meeting her reflected gaze, I can't help wondering whether this is my addled mind's desperate way of floating certain memories to the surface so that they can try to escape.

“Are you real?” I ask.

I wait for an answer, but I'm not actually expecting one. I've written a few ghost stories over the years but to be honest I've never actually believed in any of that horseshit. When people are dead, they're gone, and they don't get to come back and linger in the land of the living. So as I continue to stare at the dead girl reflected in the window, I feel absolutely certain that she's just some kind of burp from the depths of my mind. And if this can happen, then what else might show up?

“You're not real,” I tell her. “I know the -”

Suddenly she steps closer. Resisting the urge to turn around again, I instead watch the reflection as Olivia approaches. After a few seconds I swear I feel the air getting colder, but I tell myself that this is entirely down to the power of suggestion, that I'm just allowing my mind to run away with itself. Even as the ghostly figure – no, not ghostly, I mustn't use words like that – moves closer and reaches a hand out toward me from behind, I grit my teeth and remind myself that I'm too smart and too well-educated to fall for simple tricks of the mind.

And then, to my horror, I feel a cold dead hand touching my shoulder.

Startled, I spin round and look at her, but she's gone. I quickly try to focus on the fact that she was never there at all, yet I can still feel an echo of her touch. Worse than that, I swear that for a fraction of a second I also heard a low, rattling gasp.

Chapter Thirty-Six

“Perfect,” I whisper as I lean back from the laptop and stare at the screen. “Let's see that bitch Stacy find something to complain about this time.”

I read the last paragraph one more time, just to make sure that there are absolutely no mistakes, and then I close the file before attaching it to an email and sending it my agent. I know she'll complain about something, that's her job, but at least this time I've made sure that there are no major errors of typos.

Two days have passed since I made the discovery in the basement and I've managed to calm my mind by focusing on my work. I am, after all, a writer at heart – so I figure that I need to write in order to gain the maximum possible control over my brain. So far no slivers of memory have come back, but I haven't seen any further hallucinations of dead girls and I don't seem to be forgetting more things. And the satisfaction of completing the latest book means that I feel more myself than ever.

I just need to figure out what to do with the bodies in the basement.

Getting to my feet, I realize that lunchtime is on the horizon. I head to the kitchen and grab a bowl, and I spoon some of last night's dinner out of the pot. Humming to myself, I make my way to the hall and open the door to the basement, and then I walk down and slip through into the hidden area that the police so dazzlingly failed to find when they were here. To be honest, I can't help noticing that I seem to be slipping a little too easily into this role, as if on some deep subconscious level it feels rather natural.

“Hey,” I say as I step into the room containing the girls, “I don't know if you're still on hunger strike, but I brought you something.”

I step over to the far end of the room, taking care to avoid tripping over any of the corpses, and then I stop to look down at Jessie. She's still alive, but as has become her habit she doesn't bother to look up at me. Hell, she doesn't even show any sign that she's noticed my arrival. To be honest, while I understand her attitude, part of me thinks that she's being just a little unnecessarily rude.

“I'll leave it here,” I say, placing the plate on the floor next to the rest of the untouched food. “You should try to eat something.”

Stepping back, I leave her ample chance to answer. If she thinks she can simply starve herself to death, then she's got another thing coming. At some point I might have to force the food down her throat, but we're not quite at that stage yet. Part of me would like to let her die, but I still worry that I might need her alive for some reason and I know it's better to keep her around just in case. If that seems a little cruel, then I'm sorry, but I need to think about my own requirements here.

“There's no point being stubborn,” I tell her. “It won't get you anywhere. If you play nice and try to get me on your side, I might even...”

I'm not quite sure how to finish that sentence. It's not as if I can let her go, because she'd undoubtedly run straight to the police and I certainly have no intention of taking the fall for crimes I don't even remember committing. I watch the back of her head for a moment longer, and then I turn and make my way out of the room. To be honest, sometimes I think this girl really could do a little more to help herself.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

As I drive into town, I start making a mental list of all the things that I need to get done. Some new security cameras arrived yesterday morning but I need different screws so that I can mount them around the property, plus I also need to upgrade my laptop to handle all the storage requirements.

I steer the car around the next bend in the road, but after a moment I realize that I can smell something rich and filled with iron.

Blood?

I bring the car to a halt at the side of the road and for the next few minutes I try to work out where the strange smell is coming from. I'm certainly not bleeding and there's no other obvious source for this strange aroma, yet if anything it's getting stronger and I feel as if I have to know what's going on.

Finally I climb out of the vehicle, but if anything the smell is stronger now, as if the scent of blood is wafting through the forest. Turning, I look all around but I see absolutely nothing out of the ordinary.

And then, very slowly, I remember...

In my mind's eye, I see myself standing in the basement wearing some kind of plastic apron. I'm covered in blood, truly covered, to the extent that some is even caked in my nostrils. It's not my blood, though; no, it's blood from the dead woman on the floor before me. When I look down, I see that her abdomen has been cut open from top to bottom, revealing not only the glistening slop of her intestines but also the edges of her exposed ribs. The sight is shocking, like something you might see in the back room at a butcher's stop, but a moment later I hear a sobbing sound.

Turning, I see another woman – Jessie, but less bloodied and injured – whimpering in the far corner.

“Why did you do that?” she sobs. “Why did you make me watch?”

I open my mouth to answer, but I don't know what to say. A fraction of a second later, as I blink, I find myself back on the side of the road – and the stench of blood has faded away, replaced by a cool breeze blowing the scent of the forest all around me.

Wondering just how that snippet of a memory emerged in my head, I pull the car door open again, only to notice at the last second that there's a small amount of blood on one of my fingers. I swear I checked for blood just a moment ago and there was nothing, but now I see a tiny scrap of the damn stuff seemingly dried around the edge of my fingernail. I scrape it away, yet I can't ignore a lingering sense of concern at the back of my mind.

Checking my watch, I see that the time now is almost two in the afternoon.

How is that possible? I left the house around ten this morning and I've done nothing more than drive almost all the way into town. That should have taken twenty minutes at most, yet seemingly four hours have passed. Feeling more than a little faint, I lean back against the side of the car and try to pull my head together.

I take my phone from my pocket and see several missed calls from Stacy, along with some emails, but I'm really not in the mood to even think about what those might be about.

Instead I climb into the car and – telling myself that I really need to stay focused and avoid any more of these blackouts – I quickly set off again on my journey into town.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

As I step out of the car a short while later, this time in the car park directly outside the cafe, I can't help but feel a glimmer of relief as I spot Sophie carrying a bag out to the bins.

“Morning!” I call out, hoping to establish a sense of ordinariness again. “Or rather, afternoon!”

She turns and looks at me, and I immediately see the hint of indecision in her eyes. She always used to smile whenever she saw me, but that Zac boy has obviously been whispering his stupid ideas into her ear and now she seems to need a moment to reset. She glances around, almost as if she's worried that we might be overheard, but then she surprises me by making her way over.

“Busy day?” I ask, trying to make small talk as I head around to the rear of the car so that I can grab a few items.

“Sorta,” she murmurs, stopping at the car's other end. “Mr. Linton, can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” I reply as I open the boot.

“Have you ever been married?”

Stopping with the boot half open, I stare at her.

“Sorry,” she continues, “I know it's none of my business. I was just wondering, that's all.”

“No, I've never been married,” I tell her cautiously. “I had a few close calls once or twice, but I've always preferred the bachelor lifestyle.”

I wait for her to go on, but she seems lost in thought. I can't help but wonder whether she's trying to work out what she truly thinks. If Zac has been poisoning her mind about me, it's entirely possible that she doesn't want to believe him – in which case she's trying to figure out the truth.

“No kids, either,” I add, “in case you were wondering about that. Well, none that I know of, at least. You never know if something might crawl out of the woodwork, right?”

She doesn't laugh, so I open the boot and look down to search for my bags.

“If -”

And then I freeze as I see Zac's bloodied body squeezed into the boot. His eyes – dead for sure, and glassy – stare up almost directly at me from a face that has been smashed to pieces on one side, and there's a considerable amount of blood all over one side of his shirt. His hands, meanwhile, are pale with slightly curled fingers, and there's a lot of dirt and grit all around one of those hands in particular. In just a matter of seconds, I'm instantly able to tell that he died a violent death and that he at least tried to defend himself.

“I'm sorry, Mr. Linton,” Sophie says, making her way closer. “I -”

Before she can get another word out, I slam the boot shut so that she won't be able to see what's in there. To be perfectly honest, part of me wonders whether it can even be true, although I realize after a moment that this might explain why I was so willing to leave the house today. I knew Zac was sneaking around, so shouldn't I have been more worried about heading into town? The only question is... when did I kill him?

“I guess it's easy to have suspicions about people,” Sophie continues, still following whatever weird train of thought has been twisting its way through her mind. “I just wanted to apologize if I seemed weird with you lately. I hope you'll still come for cups of tea now and again.”

“Of course I will,” I reply, while trying desperately to work out how I'm going to get rid of Zac's corpse. “But hey, I don't think I'll be able to make it today. In fact, I just remembered... I need to go and take care of a few things. Keep that tea warm and I'll be back tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay, Mr. Linton.”

“I'll be back tomorrow,” I say again, trying to seem calm as I hurry back to the front of the car. “Oh, and Sophie?”

She smiles at me, but it's a faint and slightly nervous smile.

“How many times do I have to tell you?” I continue. “Call me Tom.”

Chapter Thirty-Nine

There are numerous benefits to owning a large property in the middle of nowhere. One of those benefits is the ability to bury a body deep, deep down in the ground where nobody – not even cadaver dogs or whatever they're called – should ever be able to find them.

By the time I've managed to dig a hole eight feet down in the soft soil, I'm feeling exhausted. At the same time, I know I have to get this done, so I force myself to keep going: I grab the sheet I set Zac on, and I drag him to the edge before throwing his wretched corpse down to the very bottom. Then I pick up the shovel and set to work filling the hole in, and I must admit that I get a sense of real satisfaction as I watch that pale motherfucker vanishing beneath a mound of good old-fashioned dirt.

I even take a moment to spit into the hole before continuing. I know I'm going to ache so much after doing this, but night is starting to fall and I know I need to get the job completed before it gets completely dark out here. And that's before I start cleaning the boot out so that there's no hint of Zac's D.N.A. in there.

Glancing at the house, I see the lights on inside but fortunately there's no sign of anybody. No intruders and, perhaps even more importantly, no ghosts.

***

“So could I potentially get that in the next few days?” I ask, carrying my phone and a glass of red through to the living room. “If I paid a little extra, would I be able to expedite the whole procedure?”

“I can have it for you by Friday,” Doctor Jordan replies over the phone. “I've got to say, though, Tom... I'm quite surprised that you're so keen. When I mentioned this before -”

“When you mentioned it before, I wasn't quite as motivated,” I admit.

“So what changed?”

Setting the glass of wine down, I keep the phone next to one side of my face as I look at my reflection in the window. So far I've seen no sign of any ghostly figures tonight, although part of me worries that something might appear at any moment. It'd be just like my brain to try to ambush me just when I'm starting to relax.

“Let's just say,” I continue cautiously, “that I'd like to rule a few things out. You told me that an injection of vitamin B12 might very well help me to feel less... confused. I'd like to see if you were right.”

“And if I'm not right,” he replies, “then are you willing to have some other tests?”

“Let's burn those bridges when we get to them,” I say jokingly.

“Tom -”

“I'm meeting you halfway,” I add, hoping to get this awkward conversation over with. “You've been nagging me to try the B12 thing for a while and I'm ready to hop onboard. Can we just start with that and see where it takes us? I'm not committing to anything else right now. I just want -”

Before I can finish, I spot car headlights approaching. I instantly flinch as I try to work out who could possibly be coming to visit me at eight in the evening, but I remind myself that there's no reason to panic. Glancing around, I see that there's nothing untoward, nothing that might arouse suspicion. As the car comes to a halt and the headlights switch off, I try to focus on the fact that I'm still in complete control.

I hear footsteps approaching the house, followed by a firm knock on the door.

“Apparently I have a visitor,” I tell Doctor Jordan, relieved that at least I have a good excuse to get off the line. “Book me in for Friday. Let me know the time. I'll see you then.”

Once the call is over, I set my glass of wine down and head into the hallway. I take a moment to check myself in the mirror, and then I make sure to seem calm and collected as I walk to the door and pull it open.

“How can I -”

In that moment I see her, but for a few seconds I can't quite believe that she's here at my house.

“Hey, Tom,” Sophie says, eyeing me with a hint of concern. I can't put my finger on it, but something seems different about her. “Can I come in? I think it's time for us to talk.”

Chapter Forty

As she walks through into the living room, I watch Sophie and try to work out why she seems to have such a different kind of energy about her tonight. For one thing, I didn't even know she drove, and for another she's showing none of the slight reticence that I noticed even today when I bumped into her in the car park.

I try to tell myself, however, that there's no way she knows anything about what has been happening. At worst, she might be here to ask if I've seen Zac. Without meaning to sound mean, she's hardly the type to suddenly figure everything out.

“Do you know why I'm here?” she asks.

“I'm not entirely sure that I do,” I admit. “Would you like a glass of wine?”

“Sure.”

Heading to the counter, I hurriedly fill a second glass. I can't remember the last time I entertained an attractive twenty-one-year-old girl in my home, but as I turn and carry the glass over to her I actually feel a little nervous. Sure enough, when I hand the glass to her, she keeps her eyes fixed very firmly on me.

“This looks expensive,” she suggests.

“I try to keep some good stuff around,” I reply. “I wouldn't class myself as an expert or anything like that, but I know that anything above twenty quid a bottle is starting to stray into decent territory. Not that there are any guarantees, of course. I have a wine guy, is what I'm trying to say. He knows what I like, so all I have to do is pay the bill.”

“You seem off.”

“Off?”

“Nervous.”

“I'm not nervous,” I tell her, although I immediately follow that assertion with a palpably nervous smile. “I'm just surprised, that's all,” I continue. “You're pretty much the last person I expected to have show up at my door unannounced tonight.”

“Really?”

She narrows her gaze slightly as she conspicuously stares at me. It's almost as if I'm being analyzed.

“To be honest,” she adds, “I thought you might be expecting me.”

“Maybe,” I admit. “Deep down, on some unacknowledged level.”

I hesitate before suddenly realizing that we're standing very close to one another. I'm not at all troubled by that, of course, but I still take a step back. I'm more than twice Sophie's age and while I'm extremely flattered that she seems interested in me, I can't help but wonder whether she might have some kind of ulterior motive for coming here tonight.

“So we need to talk,” she says firmly.

“We do,” I reply, even if I have no idea what she thinks we need to talk about. “Well, here I am. I'm all ears, so to speak.”

“Tom,” she continues, “I -”

“Sophie.”

“What?”

“No,” I say with a sigh, fully aware that I must seem like a complete moron, “I was just... never mind, why don't you just get on with whatever it is that you came here to say?”

She opens her mouth to reply, before holding back for a moment.

“Okay, whatever,” she goes on. “Tom, listen, I think -”

Before she can finish, we both hear a bumping sound coming from somewhere nearby. We turn and look toward the hallway, and while there's no sign of anything untoward, I'm already starting to worry about the ghostly figures that have been appearing every so often. I think I can handle seeing them now, but part of me worries about other people being able to make them out.

“Is there someone else here?” Sophie asks.

“No,” I reply quickly, turning to her. “Why would there be?”

“I don't know,” she says, furrowing her brow. “Tom, if -”

And then it happens again, except this time it's worse: another bump rings out, followed now by the unmistakable sound of perhaps half a dozen footsteps that finally fade away to nothing.

“Who's here?” Sophie asks.

“No-one!” I insist again, but I can tell from the look in her eyes that she's not buying my explanation. “Wait, can I ask you something? Did you... I mean, are you sure you actually heard that just now?”

“Heard what?”

“Tell me,” I continue. “Tell me what you heard.”

“I heard someone else in your house, Tom,” she replies, fixing me with a stare that seems designed to almost penetrate my skull. “I'm sorry to ask you this again, but please understand that I'm just trying to get to the truth. Is there – or is there not – someone else in the house with you right now? With us?”

I try to work out how I should respond, but the silence of the whole place seems so complete right now.

“There is not,” I tell her, “although... I know you're going to think that I'm crazy, but lately I've been wondering whether there might be some kind of...”

As much as I don't want to say this next word out loud and make myself seem insane, I figure that it might be the only way to explain things right now. Besides, for all I know Sophie might be really into this sort of thing.

“Okay, don't laugh,” I add, “but... I'm increasingly convinced that this house might be haunted.”

Chapter Forty-One

“I don't hear anything,” Sophie says after we've sat in the kitchen for ten minutes without saying a word. “Are you sure that noise wasn't just caused by the house settling or something like that?”

“Please,” I reply, taking a sip of wine, “that's the most cliched explanation possible.”

“It might be true, though,” she says, and then she takes a longer gulp from her glass. “I've got to admit, I never had you down as someone who might get freaked out by ghost stories. Sure, you write them, but it's hard to believe that you put much stock in them.”

“Everyone's allowed to change their mind,” I point out, relieved that we seem to be having a normal conversation after the shaky start to her visit. “What about you? Do you think there might be anything out there that we mere humans can't possibly comprehend?”

“I think it'd be pretty arrogant to dismiss the idea.”

“You're smart,” I tell her. “I could always tell that, but it's really obvious tonight. You know, I think you're wasted in your day job. Have you never wanted to move up and do something that makes better use of your obvious talents? How can you stand to spend all day, every day just dealing with a bunch of morons?”

“I manage,” she says with a faint smile, before taking a sip of wine. “Those morons pay my bills, you know?”

“Still, you deserve something better,” I insist. “You know, I could maybe help out with that.”

“You could?”

“I could pull some strings and see if there's anything around that might make better use of your assets. You're a smart girl and I think you should be using your brain more.”

“Is that so?” she replies, seemingly amused by the suggestion.

“I'm not promising anything,” I continue, “and I certainly don't expect anything in return, but let me put some feelers out. There's nothing wrong with people helping each other, is there? If you ask me, that's how the world works. Or it's how it should work. Too often these days we're shielded from each other by the digital world. That's why, I guess, it's so nice that you took the initiative to come out here tonight.”

I top up her glass of wine with the last dribble from the bottle.

“I'm seeing you in a whole new light,” I tell her. “I'd like to say that I'm surprised, but I'm really not.”

“We need to talk,” she replies, and I can tell that she's trying to steer the conversation back to whatever brought her all the way out here for this impromptu visit. “I've been trying to work out how to phrase this, and I've been trying to come up with a polite way to put it all, but I think maybe I just need to blurt it all out. Tom -”

“Wait right there,” I say, getting up and heading to the door. “I'll grab another bottle before we get into the nitty gritty.”

“Tom -”

“I'll be two shakes of a lamb's tail,” I add, hurrying into the pantry so that I can get a bottle of red. I know I'm delaying, but I tell myself that I need a little more time to think. “That's an old phrase my grandmother used to use, by the way. The older I get, the more I start to realize that she was a wise old bird.”

Once I reach the wine rack, I stop in my tracks. My heart is racing and I know that I need to get my head in gear, but I'm finding that I just can't quite think straight. Reaching out, I slide a bottle of red from the rack, but I'm still worried that at any moment Sophie's going to say something that makes me feel extremely uncomfortable. What if she's taking Zac's concerns more seriously? What if she came here tonight because she wants to work out whether I might actually be capable of something awful? There's no way she can even know that anything happened to Zac and that he's in a hole barely fifty feet from where we've been sitting, but what if she's smart enough to figure it all out? Or what if she's trying to steal a glass with my fingerprints on it?

No.

No, she could easily get my fingerprints from a mug at the cafe.

Realizing that I've spent too long in here, I tell myself that I'll be fine and that I can think on my feet. I carry the bottle of red back through, and then I stop in the doorway.

“Found it,” I say with a smile. “I thought -”

Suddenly I see that she's standing in the middle of the room and that she has taken off all her clothes. Completely naked now, she stares at me before taking a step forward. She reaches down and takes my hand, and I can only look into her eyes as I feel all my defenses starting to crumble.

“I hope you don't mind,” she says softly, with the naughtiest of naughty smiles, “but I think I need to test out a theory.”

Chapter Forty-Two

I've got to admit that while I've often lusted after Sophie, and while I've certainly admired her figure a few times while she's been bending over in the cafe, I never actually thought that this would happen. I guess I could never quite bring myself to indulge in the absolutely hackneyed cliché of the older male writer bedding a younger woman.

I'm approaching my fifties and she's barely into her twenties, yet she seems so...grateful.

As I remain flat on my back, I look up and watch her slowly grinding against me. No matter how wonderful her body might have looked when it was hidden beneath the curves of her uniform, she's so much hotter now that she's naked. I reach up and cup her small, pert breasts, and I tell myself that sex is never going to get better than this. Everything about her – from the way she looks to the way she moves – seems designed to match my every need and every fantasy.

For the first time in my life, I feel obscenely grateful to a lover.

“Do you like that?” she asks softly, and already her voice is pulsing with anticipation.

“Mmm,” I reply, before telling myself that I need to be more proactive and passionate. “I mean, of course. What about you?”

“It's good,” she says, fixing me with those beautiful brown eyes of her. “It's always good. That's one thing I can never deny.”

Leaning forward, she starts kissing me while grinding harder. I put my hands on her back and then slide them down until I'm clutching her buttocks, and I swear I've never felt so good in all my life. A moment later she pulls back from the kiss and I feel her hot breath on my face, but more than that I swear I can actually smell her youth, as if her twenty-one-year-old skin is exuding a kind of vitality and power that's usually lost on older people. I reach up to cup her breasts again, although I wince as I feel another sliver of pain from my damaged ribs.

“Are you okay?” she asks. “Do we need to stop?”

“No,” I say firmly, determined to push through any pain. “Never.”

“How about now?” she whispers, and I can't help but notice that her breath has a pleasant and slightly apple-ish smell. “That feels so good.”

“You don't have to tell me!” I gasp, before correcting myself. “I mean, please do tell me. I want to know everything.”

“I always think sex is the best way to get to the core of a person's soul,” she continues, and I must admit that I'm surprised by just how chatty she's becoming. “It strips away all the artifice and all the pretense. When you're in bed with someone, you really find out who they are. And how they're feeling.”

“That's true,” I reply, and I'm getting a little frustrated now by my inability to say anything deep or meaningful. I could try talking dirty, but I'm worried that would just accentuate the age gap between us. “So is that why you came here tonight?” I continue as she starts grinding harder than ever. “Because you wanted to get to the core of my soul?”

“Something like that,” she says, before biting her bottom lip for a moment.

I move my hands a little further up her back and feel a small mole just to one side of her waist. I normally hate moles on women, but I let my fingertips linger on this one as I tell myself that it's a symbol of her youthful beauty.

As I look up into her eyes, I realize that she seems to have fallen silent now. In fact, she's staring at me as if she's once again trying to read my mind, and I have to really focus in order to stop feeling uncomfortable. I want to break the silence, but instead I keep my mouth shut as the bed starts shaking and the headboard starts bumping rhythmically against the wall. I can tell that she's starting to push toward her climax and I tell myself that this is going to be a beautiful thing to behold, and as I put my arms around her and hold her tighter I hear her breathing becoming harsh and jagged.

“That feels so fucking good,” she groans. “I've got to admit it, you really know what you're doing.”

“That'll be experience,” I gasp as I realize that I too am getting close. “Sometimes you've got to go with a slightly older guy if you want the full package.”

Chapter Forty-Three

The first rays of morning light are starting to stream through the bedroom window as I slowly open my eyes. I realize immediately that I must have drifted off as soon as Sophie and I were done, and a moment later I look over at the other side of the bed and see that there's nobody there.

The sheets are crumpled, however, and after a few seconds I realize that I can hear the shower running.

“Wow,” I murmur, sitting up and trying to take stock of everything that happened last night.

I still don't understand quite what motivated Sophie to show up here and drag me into bed, although obviously I'm extremely grateful. Well, 'grateful' might not be the right word; let's go with 'honored' instead. I guess I never actually thought that a hot young woman like her would fall for a crotchety older guy such as myself, even if I have to admit that I've always kept myself in pretty good shape. The writing lifestyle is extremely sedentary and if I hadn't been pushing myself to go to the gym for years, by now I'd be a fat bastard.

All those lifts, lunges and presses helped me get a girl like Sophie into bed, although I'd like to think that my natural charm did some of the work. Plus, everyone knows that sensitive and smart girls love a writer.

Then there's the age thing.

Sure, these girls are attracted to the young macho types like Zac, but eventually the smart ones realize that a proper man is more about experience and wisdom. Sophie has always struck me as the smart type, so should I really be surprised that she finally got bored of Zac and decided she wants someone who can look after her properly?

As the shower switches off, I climb out of bed and make my way to the bathroom. I can't help but worry that there might be some awkwardness this morning, but I figure that I can push through that. I open the door and step into the steam-filled room just as the shower opens, and I quickly grab a towel.

“Oh, hey,” a voice says, “I just thought I'd take a shower before breakfast.”

I freeze for a moment, puzzled by the voice, and then I turn to see a shape stepping toward me through the steam.

“That was a good distraction last night,” Stacy says, “but that's all it was. I figured that if we slept together again I could see whether you're still the old Tom Linton. But seriously, Tom... we need to talk business.”

Chapter Forty-Four

“You don't mind if I make myself some coffee, do you?” she asks, heading across the kitchen and starting to fill the tank on the back of the machine. “Do you want some too?”

“What are you doing here?” I ask, stopping in the doorway and watching her.

“You weren't so bothered last night.”

“Where did she go?”

“Where did who go?”

I open my mouth to ask about Sophie, but in that moment I realize that I feel slightly dizzy. Reaching out to steady myself against the side of the door, I tell myself that there's no way I can have imagined Sophie's presence last night, but everything is suddenly pointing to the fact that it was my agent and not the hot girl from the cafe who bounced me into bed.

Heading to the window, I look out and sure enough I see Stacy's car parked near the trees. In that moment, I remember something Sophie told me at the cafe a while back while she was topping me up.

“I don't know if I'll ever learn to drive,” she admitted. “I'm so clumsy, I'm not sure whether I'd trust myself.”

“Tom, are you listening to me?”

Suddenly Stacy snaps her fingers next to me. Startled, I focus on her hand and see all the lines and wrinkles, and I smell a perfume that I can only describe as... old. It's the kind of perfume that older women wear.

Before I have a chance to say anything, she hurries to the fridge and pulls the door open.

“What are you doing here?” I ask, not for the first time.

“You told me that the next draft of your book would be better,” she replies. “You told me you were going to fix all the structural problems and that you were going to sort out all the typos. So how do you think I felt yesterday when I looked through the latest file you sent me and saw that somehow it was even worse? Seriously, Tom, did you even glance at it before you sent it over to me?”

“Yes, but -”

“Then it's clear what's going on here,” she adds, setting a bottle of milk on the side before swinging the fridge door shut and turning to me. She hesitates, and I can see a hint of sadness in her eyes. “You can't do this anymore.”

“Do what?” I ask.

“You can't hide the fact that something's wrong with your head.”

“Not this again,” I sigh. “Listen, I've actually just made an appointment to get an injection of vitamin B12 later in the week. Doctor Jordan thinks it might make things better almost immediately. Once that's done, I'm sure everything will be okay. Apparently a B12 deficiency can be easily confused with all sorts of other things including dementia. In fact, I know a guy back in London who had the same thing and he described the effects of the injection as being like a veil that lifted from his mind.”

“Do you seriously think this injection will miraculously make you better?”

“It's not just me. Doctor Jordan has high hopes as well.”

“So why haven't you had it before?”

“I didn't think I needed it,” I tell her. “Traditionally it's for older men who -”

And then, before I can get another word out, I see her.

One of the girls from the basement – Milly, I think – is standing right next to Stacy. She appeared in the literal blink of an eye and now she's naked and covered in cuts and bruises, and her eyes are fixed on me. My first thought is that of course she can't actually be there, yet I quickly find that I can't simply ignore her. With each passing second I know that Stacy is going to be more and more concerned about me, but the dead girl's gaze seems almost to be cutting straight into my soul.

“Tom?” Stacy says, before briefly glancing directly at the spot where Milly's standing. “What's wrong?”

“Do you see anything?” I stammer.

“Like what?”

“I know this is going to sound strange, but humor me,” I continue. “Do you... do you see anything or anyone or... anything wrong in this room right now?”

“Tom, you're scaring me.”

“I told you, I need you to humor me.”

She looks directly toward Milly, and then she turns and looks the other way.

“I see an empty kitchen,” she says finally.

“You don't see anything else?”

“Tom, what -”

“Okay,” I continue, shaking my head and – in that moment – seeing to my relief that the dead naked girl has vanished. “So it's not a ghost. I'm not being haunted by the ghosts of these girls I don't even remember. It's just some vision from my subconscious. That actually makes a lot more sense.”

“What are you talking about now?” Stacy asks, and I don't really blame her for sounding just a little frustrated.

“Nothing,” I reply. “Just thinking out loud, really. In fact, I think I might change the title of my next book. What do you think of the title Dead Naked Girls?”

“I think most retailers would refuse to stock it,” she says matter-of-factly. “I also think that, at the moment, we don't have a next book lined up, because what you keep sending me is not publishable. You might as well call it Typo if you want to be strictly honest.”

I stare at the spot where Milly was standing, keen to prove to myself that she isn't going to reappear, and then I turn to Stacy again. How did I mistake her for Sophie all night? Sure, a brief moment of confusion might be explicable, but it's as if I made the initial mistake and then my addled brain simply ran with the whole damn thing until this morning. Was it wishful thinking or am I getting so confused now that I can mix up two people for twelve hours? If it's the latter, then doesn't that suggest that things are getting worse?

That vitamin B12 injection can't come soon enough.

“Tom, I'm not just your agent,” Stacy says finally. “I also like to think that I'm your friend. Plus, as last night amply demonstrated, we've been on-and-off friends with benefits for a few years as well. So please... believe me when I tell you that I'm not leaving here until we've figured out what's wrong with your head. One way or another.”

Chapter Forty-Five

“There's another one here that's apparently really useful!” Stacy calls out from the living room a short while later, as the smell of coffee continues to fill the house. “It's an online test that can be used to determine what kind of memory problems you're having. Tom, why don't you come through and we'll give it a try?”

“You've got to be kidding me,” I whisper under my breath, standing in the kitchen and looking out at the forest.

Keeping my eyes fixed on the spot where I buried Zac, I'm relieved to see that so far there's no sign of any disturbance. Part of me was worried that some errant fox might have wandered through the area and dug him up. Given the way my luck has been going lately, I wouldn't even be that surprised to see bits of Zac fucking Taylor strewn all across the driveway, leading to some farcical situation in which I have to try to rebury him while making sure that Stacy doesn't see anything.

So far, however...

So far, so good.

“Ooh, here's an even better one,” she yells. “Tom, I know it's not the same as a proper assessment from an actual doctor, but would you at least consider running through a few of these tests with me? They're free so you don't even have to pay anything.”

“Can't you tell that I just want you to leave?” I whisper, as I think back to the sight of Sophie in my bed last night and realize with a shudder that it was Stacy all along. “Woman, get the message. I'm fine. I just need to wait until I've had that injection on Friday.”

I hesitate, and then I hear footsteps making their way through the house. I turn to look at the doorway, and I brace myself for Stacy to appear with more inane suggestions, but instead a moment later I hear a familiar creaking sound. A few more seconds pass, however, before I realize exactly what she's doing.

“What the -”

I hurry out into the hall, and to my shock I see that the door to the basement stairs is wide open and she's already turned the light on.

“Hey, where are you going?” I call out, hurrying to the door and looking down just in time to see her shadow disappearing out of view. “Stacy?”

She doesn't answer, so I hurry down the stairs and stumble into the basement just in time to see that she's peering down to look through the opening that leads into the next part. Having not anticipated any visitors, I left the boxes shoved to one side, and a moment later Stacy starts climbing through.

“Stop!” I shout.

She stops, at least, and after a few seconds she turns to me.

“Get out of here!” I say firmly.

“I heard a noise,” she replies cautiously. “Tom, why are you looking at me like that? What -”

In that instant we both hear the telltale – in every respect – sound of Jessie's chains rattling in the farthest part of the basement.

“What have you got down here?” Stacy asks, and I can tell now that she's not going to be easily fobbed off with some stupid explanation. “Tom, I thought I heard someone from upstairs and now...”

Her voice trails off as the sound of the chains returns. For a moment I genuinely have no idea what to do, and I simply stare in frozen terror as Stacy looks back at the opening.

“Hello?” Jessie calls out suddenly, sounding exhausted but also slightly hopeful. “Who's there? You have to get me out of here! Please, help me!”

“Tom,” Stacy says, “what -”

Hurrying over to her, I do the only thing that I know is going to fix the situation. Grabbing her from behind, I put an arm around her throat and pull her tight, and then I start squeezing as hard as I can manage.

Letting out a shock gasp, Stacy tries to twist away, but I've already got her held firmly. I hesitate for a moment, wondering what to do next, but I have no weapons within easy reach. Instead I have to squeeze tighter and tighter in a desperate attempt to throttle her, although a moment later she reaches up and starts digging her fingernails into my wrist.

“What are you doing?” she hisses, barely able to get the words out. “Tom, let go of me!”

“Help!” Jessie shouts in the other part of the basement. “Call the police! Please, you have to help me before he stops you!”

“I'm sorry!” I blurt out, annoyed that Stacy hasn't conveniently passed out yet. “You shouldn't have come down here!”

“Tom, what's going on?” she gasps as I squeeze tighter and tighter. She tries again to get free but she's not strong enough. “What are you doing down here?”

I open my mouth to try to explain, but I know there's nothing I can say now. I'm past the point of no return, at least as far as Stacy is concerned, so I focus on squeezing tighter and tighter in a frantic attempt to... well, I suppose now I'm trying to strangle her.

“Tom, I can't breathe!” she shouts, and I can tell that she's really starting to panic now.

A moment later she slams an elbow into my side, catching one of the spots where my ribs are already damaged. An unimaginable pain bursts up through my side and I gasp, letting go of her and pulling back. She stumbles forward, but despite the pain I immediately rush at her and grab her by the throat again, although I'm fully aware that this particular angle doesn't seem to be producing results.

“Help!” she shouts. “Somebody -”

Panicking, I turn her around and slam her head-first into the wall. My ribs are burning more than ever now but I know I need to keep going, so I pull her back and slam her head into the wall two more times. There's no blood, however, and she's still trying to get free of my grip. As I struggle to hold onto her, I'm struck by two horrific realizations: first that it's actually very hard to kill another human being with your bare hands, and second that I also appear to be spectacularly bad at -

Suddenly she slams an elbow into my face.

Falling back, I hit the wall and immediately see that she's stumbling toward the stairs that lead back up into the main part of the house.

“Help me!” she shouts, although I'm not sure who she actually thinks is going to hear her. “Somebody help me!”

“Damn it,” I mutter, hurrying after her and trying to grab her from behind, only for her to start racing up the stairs two at a time. “Stacy, wait!”

I race up after her, but she's already in the hallway. Fortunately it doesn't seem to occur to her to try to slam the basement door shut in my face. She runs to the front door and tries to get it open, and this slows her enough for me to catch up. Grabbing her by the arm, I force her to turn and meet my stare.

“What's wrong with you?” she sobs as tears stream down her face. “Tom, what are you doing?”

“I can explain,” I tell her as I spot an old vase on the table nearby. Holding my hands up, I try to take charge of the situation. “It's not what it seems.”

“I'm calling the police,” she replies. “Tom, what were you just trying to do to me?”

“I thought... I thought you'd think it's kinky,” I suggest breathlessly.

“Kinky?” She stares at me with an expression of complete shock. “Who else have you got down there, Tom?”

“It's a little game I like to play,” I tell her as I step closer to the table. “Okay, fine, I admit it. I'm into some pretty dark stuff, but it's important that you know everything is completely consensual. That... girl and I have a safe word and I completely respect it. Yes, it's weird and odd, but it's totally legal. And I just got the impression from a few things you said that you might be... into it.”

“Into it?” she replies, still struggling to get her breath back. After a moment she turns and looks toward the basement door again. “What kind of -”

In that moment, I take my chance. Grabbing the vase, I swing it against her head. The cheap glass shatters and Stacy gasps as she stumbles away, but she's quite clearly not even close to getting knocked out.

As she turns to me, I see the absolute fear in her eyes and I realize that there's no way I can talk her into believing that this is some kind of dodgy sex game. Sure enough, a moment later she turns and starts hurrying through to the kitchen while letting out a bizarre and slightly unsettling wobbly cry that I can only interpret as some kind of scream.

“Damn it,” I mutter again, racing after her and seeing that she's hurrying to the back door.

As she fumbles to get the door unlocked, I grab the largest knife from the block on the counter and make my way up behind her. I can feel a nagging sense of dread in the back of my mind, but I tell myself that I have no choice here. And then, just as I'm geeing myself up to stab her in the back, she turns and looks at me. I see the fear in her eyes, but I don't let that stop me and I instead raise the knife and slice it straight into her chest.

Expecting some resistance, I'm surprised that the blade actually slides easily between her ribs and into what I can only assume must be her heart. In fact, I'm tempted to believe that the precision of my strike must have been made possible by some degree of muscle memory.

She opens her mouth and manages a faint clicking gasp, and then she looks down at the knife's handle. For a moment she seems unable to believe that this is really happening, but blood is already spreading across the fabric of her shirt.

“I'm sorry,” I say, even though I know that's probably completely inappropriate. “I don't suppose there's time to explain right now, and to be honest I'm not even sure about everything myself. I was lying back there, it's not a sex thing. You're right, I'm kind of messed up in my head right now and I'm trying to make sense of it all. I just want you to know that I never would have involved you, and this is only happening now because you showed up and I wasn't expecting it.”

Her mouth remains open, but I can see that her pupils are expanding. This is actually a fascinating insight into the process of death and I tell myself that I should probably try to jot down a few notes before I forget the details. Then, in a move that I must admit quickly turns out to be a mistake, I pull the knife out and blood immediately starts gushing out all over my hands.

As I wipe some of the blood away from my fingers, I watch Stacy sliding down to the floor. She leaves a thick red smear on the door's glass, and she starts convulsing as she hits the mat. I simply stand over her, amazed that even now it's taking her a while to die, and perhaps a couple of minutes pass like this before she falls still. Once I'm fairly sure that it's all over, I crouch down and search for a pulse, and sure enough there's nothing. I look into her eyes and then I touch one with the tip of the knife's blade, and finally I'm confident enough to declare that she's actually and properly dead.

“That was hard,” I say, feeling as if I should break the silence somehow. “Much harder than I would have expected. And now I've got so much to clean up.”

Taking a deep breath, I wipe some sweat from my brow. Killing a person with your bare hands is really fucking hard!

Chapter Forty-Six

Three days later, sitting in a chair in Doctor Jordan's office, I watch as he prepares the needle.

“I want to make something very clear, Tom,” he continues. “Even if this B12 injection provides a temporary relief from certain symptoms, that doesn't mean it's a miracle cure. It's entirely possible that you have a vitamin B12 deficiency but that those symptoms are also masking something else, something deeper and more serious. I don't want you to go popping open the champagne bottles if you feel better for a few days. We need to be thinking in terms of weeks and months here.”

“Let's just get this done,” I reply. “You know I'm not a big fan of needles.”

“As our bodies get older,” he goes on, “it becomes increasingly difficult for us to get the B12 we need from our diet. This is more of a problem for some people than others but -”

“I know all this,” I tell him, cutting him off as he makes his way over to me. “Believe me, I've read up on all the vitamin B12 crap a lot over the past few days. I know the positives and negatives, I know the potential side effects, I know the mechanisms of both the initial problem and the cure. Hell, by this point I probably know it better than you do.”

Glancing at the needle's tip, I tell myself that it's best to just not look as it slides into my arm. Turning away, I wait for Doctor Jordan to get on with things.

“It shouldn't hurt too much,” he says. “Not unless you're a complete wimp when it comes to these things.”

“Do it,” I say firmly.

“Tom, if -”

“Do it,” I say again.

I wait, and this time he seems to have stopped faffing. A moment later I feel the tiniest pinprick of pain in my arm, and then I wait as the injection proceeds. Finally, after ten seconds or so, I feel the needle sliding out and I turn to watch as Doctor Jordan heads back over to the counter.

“That wasn't so bad, was it?” he mutters. “I'm impressed, Tom. You didn't even scream.”

“That's -”

Before I can finish, I feel the strangest sensation of my entire life. I blink, and it's as if a slightly dark veil is lifting from in front of my eyes. I can feel myself getting stronger and more energetic, but more than that I can somehow feel the confusion fading from my mind as if connections are being remade between thoughts and memories that were temporarily disconnected. As much as I keep telling myself that I shouldn't rush to conclusions, the effect is astonishing and within a matter of seconds I feel like a completely different person. Or, rather, I feel like I'm truly myself again.

“Well?” Doctor Jordan says, glancing over at me. “Anything?”

Chapter Forty-Seven

My name is Tom Linton, I'm the author of eleven bestselling horror crime thrillers and I'm also a serial killer. Over the past two years I've kidnapped and murdered eleven young women; four are buried on my property, five are dead in my basement and one is still alive.

Oh, and I also killed Zac Taylor and my agent Stacy Shaw, but I'm not sure that I really count them, because they were only collateral damage.

“I know what you are!” I remember my father shouting at me. “I know what you all are! You're demons! You're monsters! You want to steal my soul and replace me with one of your own, and you want to wear my flesh so that you can infect children!”

What's that old saying? Oh, right: even a broken clock is right twice a day. And Dad was a very broken clock by the end. I mean, the stuff about demons was pure bullshit, but he was right to sense something a little 'off' about me.

The best part is that I've managed to avoid the police. They don't even seem to realize that half those cases are linked. Honestly, their stupidity is staggering.

As I bring the car to a halt in front of the cafe, I can't help but feel as if I'm a completely new man. I don't understand how I ever forgot about all the things I've been doing out here at my 'holiday' home, but it's quite clear to me now that the lack of vitamin B12 was seriously clouding my judgment. Stepping out of the car, I remind myself that Doctor Jordan thinks I'll need a similar injection every three months, but that's nothing; I'd gladly take the needle once a day if that was what it took, because the effect is utterly startling.

I'm back, baby.

***

The little bell rings as I push the door open, and I immediately see that Sophie is cleaning one of the coffee machines. As I'd anticipated on this dull and slightly rainy Friday morning, the cafe's empty.

“Hey there,” I say, stepping over to the counter and watching as she unscrews a nozzle from the machine. “How are things down here?”

“Good,” she says somewhat evasively, although she seems barely able to look me in the eye. “Your usual?”

“I would love my usual,” I tell her, and I can't help but look at the way her uniform clings to her figure as she heads over to the other machine. “Looks like you're not that busy today. I guess it must be the weather. Well, that and the time of year.”

“Probably,” she murmurs.

For a moment I can't help thinking back to the sex I imagined us having the other night. Sure, it was all in my head, but I remember every inch of her perfect body. I'd sure like to know how accurate my imagination was in that regard.

Back at the surgery, Doctor Jordan told me that there was no way the injection could have worked so quickly, that most likely I was imagining the initial improvement. If he could see me now, however, he'd have to admit that he was wrong. While I'm certain that there will be further improvements over the next few days, I already feel so much better and clearer in my head, and all my memories have come flooding back. Now that more time has passed, the effects only feel even stronger and I swear I'm ready to take on the entire world.

“So have you heard anything from your friend Zac?” I ask, determined to deal with that particular situation head on. “Is he still kicking around?”

“I haven't seen him for a few days,” she admits, which isn't much of a surprise.

“I wouldn't worry about that,” I tell her, watching as she takes a mug from the opposite counter. “I hope you don't mind if I give you a little advice, Sophie. Guys like Zac are ten a penny and they're not dependable. Not in any way. I've seen sweet, attractive young women go chasing after guys like Zac before, and it never ever goes well for them. In fact, if you want my opinion, you should be glad if he's out of your hair. Delete him from your social media and just get on with your life. And who knows? Someone better for you, someone wiser and more compassionate, might be lurking closer than you think.”

She casts a brief, curious glance at me before starting to fill the mug.

“Think of this as a new day,” I continue, aware that I might be gushing a little but unable to stop myself. “Think of it as a fresh start. Tell yourself that from now on you're going to make better decisions. I know I'm certainly going to try to sort myself out. In fact, I think I'm going to start by taking myself out to dinner tonight at that steak place down the road. I've never minded going to places by myself, even if some people think that's sad. Bars, restaurants, cinemas, theaters, the opera, the ballet... I'm always happy to go without company.”

I watch as she brings the mug over, and I take out my card so I can pay.

“Then again,” I add, “company can be nice occasionally too. Hey, that's an idea. Sophie, would you like to come and grab something to eat with me tonight? I'll pay, of course, and -”

Suddenly the mug falls from her hands and smashes against the floor, spilling tea everywhere. She freezes, as if she's shocked by her mistake, but she doesn't immediately run off to get a mop.

“Butterfingers,” I say with a smile. “Sorry, I hope I didn't distract you with all my chatter.”

She murmurs something under her breath before turning around and going over to make me some more tea.

“You seem tense,” I tell her. “When was the last time you really took a moment to unwind? You know, life shouldn't just be work work work all the time. Then again, I guess guys like Zac can't afford to take you out for a relaxing evening, can they? Listen, Sophie, I'm just suggesting a nice dinner tonight for the two of us. No commitments, no expectations or anything like that. I'm not one of those weirdos. I just think we get along and it'd be good for both of us to head out of the house and unwind. As friends.”

She freezes, and after a moment I realize that she's watching my reflection in the front of one of the machines. As soon as I see her eyes, however, she looks down at the mug and focuses on the task at hand.

“Well, it was just an idea,” I suggest, keen to avoid coming on too strong. “It's no biggie. If you change your mind at any point, just let me know and I'll see if I can find another free evening in my busy schedule. Of course, I have to go back to London soon. I've got tickets to the opera next weekend. I was supposed to go with a friend, but she's pulled out. Have you ever been to the opera, Sophie?”

“I don't think so,” she says as she brings the mug over, and this time she manages to not drop it.

“You don't think so?” I reply with a smile. “Well, I think going to the opera is probably something you'd remember.”

“I should clear up the mess,” she murmurs, heading to the back for a moment and then returning with a mop and bucket.

“You certainly should,” I tell her, while once again reminding myself that there's no need to be too forceful. I just need to wait and let her come to me instead. “Well, I'll see you around, Sophie. Just remember to not work too hard, yeah?”

Chapter Forty-Eight

Sitting in my dark car at the far end of the car park, I stare out at the lights of the cafe.

Seven hours have passed since I was in there talking to Sophie. After I left, I went into town and did some shopping, and then I went home and managed to squeeze out some of the best writing of my life. I went through the file I sent to Stacy and saw that she was right about all the mistakes, but they're fixed now and I made some serious improvements. Then I drove Stacy's car far away so that it can't be traced to my property, I did a few other things that should make it impossible for anyone to link her to my place, and finally I made dinner before getting changed.

And then I drove back here and I arrived just before closing time, and for the past fifteen minutes or so I've been watching the windows as Sophie closes up.

Finally the lights switch off. In the darkness, I'm just about able to make her out as she steps outside and locks the front door. I have to admit that I feel quite sorry for her, and I can't imagine that her life is much fun. She has the slightly sloping shoulders of someone who spends way too much time just sitting around at home, probably watching films or playing video games or – even worse – staring at her phone the whole time. She's a small-town girl in a tiny little dump, and I'm not even sure that she realizes how much potential she has.

She'd look so good in a nice dress at the opera, for example. Or sitting in a decent restaurant with a man who actually knows how to treat a woman properly.

I watch as she walks away from the cafe, and then as she unlocks the bicycle that has been sitting next to the railings all day. Now my sense of pity is even stronger as I realize that she actually has to cycle home. At least the threatened rain hasn't quite materialized, but still, a girl like Sophie shouldn't be cycling home at all; she should have someone to pick her up and look after her or – better still – she should have someone who pays for her so that she doesn't have to work at some sad little cafe at all.

As she climbs onto the bike and gets ready to cycle away, I reach out to open the car door. Part of me desperately wants to go over there and offer to help her, but I know this isn't the right moment. I feel a pang of sorrow as she turns the bike around and sets off on her way. For a moment I worry that she might glance in this direction and spot me – even though I'm sitting in the dark – but she simply heads off out of the car park. Again I feel the urge to follow her, but I quickly remind myself that there's no rush and I can take my time.

After all, I know where she lives.

***

As soon as I get home and switch the engine off, I can tell that something is wrong.

The house looks completely normal, but somehow at the edge of my senses I know that something has changed. Climbing out of the car, I look all around at the dark forest, but deep down I know that it's the house that is the cause of this sensation. I swing the car door shut and make my way toward the front of the building, and I swear it's as if all my senses are tingling right now.

And I trust my senses.

I missed this. While I was in my muddled, B12-deprived state, I was a complete bumbling moron. I wouldn't have noticed anything amiss right now, for example. As I open the front door and step into the house, I immediately notice the silence. The sound of the door shutting seems so much louder right now, but I know I have to listen out for even the slightest hint that something isn't right.

Zac Taylor is rotting in a grave outside, so I know he can't be the cause of any problems. I walk over to the foot of the staircase and look up, but I'm fairly sure that the source of my concern is somewhere down here. Looking at the door to the basement, I see that it's still shut, and I tell myself that I need to be a little cautious here.

I walk through into the front room and keep the lights off as I look outside. Spotting nothing untoward, I make my way to the kitchen and look out again. At first I see nothing, until finally I notice what appears to be a very faint line running across the ground. It's the kind of thing that almost nobody would spot, yet the more I look at it, the more I realize that something has definitely moved across the grass before swooping around and arcing back out toward the forest. And in that instant, I realize that I know exactly what I've found.

Tire marks from a bike.

Looking toward the forest, I see no sign of a bike, although I suppose even the dumbest snooper would know to hide something like that. Nevertheless, it's obvious that someone has been here, and after a moment I walk calmly to the back door and find that it's unlocked. I would never ordinarily make a mistake like that, but I suppose this must be a hangover from my pre-injection movements.

I take a moment to lock the door, and then I look toward the hallway again as I remember the sight of Sophie cycling away through the night.

“Clever girl,” I whisper as my eyes focus once more on the door leading down to the basement. “Foolish, but... clever. And brave.”

***

At first, when I get down to the basement, there's no sign that anything is wrong. Sophie really has done a wonderful job of covering her tracks, but once I walk over and look at the boxes in the corner I realize that there are a few signs. Some of the dust has been disturbed again and a few of the boxes aren't quite in their usual order.

For a moment I try to work out exactly what must have happened here. Sophie evidently thought that I wouldn't be around, so she made her way straight here after work, no doubt via the shortcut through the forest. Finding the place seemingly empty, she stashed her bike somewhere before trying the doors, and she was lucky that the back had been left unlocked.

Or unlucky.

Then she must have crept in, probably while telling herself that she wasn't going to go too far. Did she hear a noise from the basement? Or did she just make her way down, following a sense of tingling superstition? Either way, she must have moved the boxes – and put them back once she'd gone through – and I imagine she's now very much aware that I've returned. Looking at the wall, I put a hand on the bare concrete and wonder whether she's on the other side right now, trembling in fear and waiting to ambush me.

I lick my dry lips, and then I slowly move the boxes out of the way.

Supposing that I need to act nonchalant and confident, I lean down and slip through the opening. The light is on in the office area of my torture chamber, which is another very clear sign that Sophie has come this way. I look around and see no sign of her, but a moment later I hear the chains moving in the main chamber and I realize that she must have made contact with Jessie. I can't imagine how Sophie must have reacted when she first came this way, and I'm sure she's panicking right now.

Once I'm sure that she's not in this room, I start making my way slowly to the other chamber while making sure that I seem unconcerned.

“I'm back,” I call out to Jessie, stepping through and seeing her shivering naked on the floor in the far corner. “Did you miss -”

Suddenly I hear a scream, and I turn just as Sophie swings one of the metal buckets at my face. Slightly caught off-guard – since I thought she'd take longer to strike – I only partially step out of the way in time and the bucket hits the side of my head. Frustrated, I turn and see Sophie's tear-filled eyes glaring at me as she rushes toward me. She clearly believes that attack is the best form of defense, but I'm prepared this time.

Grabbing her by the shoulders, I spin her around and immediately start dragging her back into the office.

“Why are you doing this?” she shouts, struggling desperately to get away.

“You shouldn't have come here,” I say firmly.

“Zac was right!”

“A mere coincidence,” I sneer, hauling her over to the main desk and then reaching down with one hand and pulling a syringe from one of the drawers.

“You're a monster!” she screams.

“You're talking about something you don't understand,” I tell her, and in that moment I manage to fill the syringe before sliding the needle into the side of her neck. “Still, you've saved me some trouble. You were going to end up down here eventually anyway.”

“I thought he was wrong,” she sobs as I wait for the sedative to take effect. Tears are streaming down her face and I can already feel her ability to fight back starting to subside. “I came out here to prove him wrong! I thought you were a nice man, Mr. Linton. I thought you were better than all the rest.”

“I still am,” I insist. “I could explain all of this, I could tell you about my childhood and about how my early books drove me to research the darker side of life; I could tell you how I started killing for research and how my books started to become so much more popular, but there'd be no point because I doubt you'd understand and besides...”

I hesitate for a few seconds, but now I'm holding her up. I gently ease her down onto the floor, and when I look at her face I see that she's out cold.

“Besides,” I continue, “you're unconscious anyway, so what would be the point?”

Setting the used syringe aside, I take hold of her feet and start dragging her back through into the main chamber. Sure, this part of the plan has arrived early, but in some ways it has merely saved me the hassle of going out there and snatching her from some spot near the cafe. She was always going to be my next guest, and now I just have to get on with the initiation ceremony. After all, each new girl gets to watch me kill her predecessor, and to be honest Jessie has been getting very annoying lately.

Unbuttoning the front of Sophie's uniform, I pull her bra aside. In my fantasy she had small, pert nipples, but I'm surprised to find that in real life her nipples are larger and darker.

“Huh,” I mutter. “I wonder -”

In that moment another scream rings out.

For a fraction of a second, I'm shocked to realize that I didn't check on Jessie already. Before I have a chance to admonish myself, however, something hard slams into the side of my head and I slump down.

As I try to get up, I see Jessie – naked and badly hurt, but dragging her loose chains behind her – scrambling toward the exit. She doesn't look back, she doesn't try to finish me off, she doesn't even try to help Sophie. Instead she simply disappears from view and a moment later I hear her scrambling up the stairs. I know I left the front door unlocked so after a moment – with a slightly sore head – I step over Sophie and head off in pursuit.

“Wait there,” I call back to my latest, unconscious victim. “I'll be back to deal with you shortly.”

Chapter Forty-Nine

Although the B12 injection has undoubtedly cleared my head, as I step out through the front door I have to admit that I'm still having to deal with all the mistakes that were made while I was befuddled and confused.

The real Tom Linton would never have let Sophie double back on me and get into the house, and he certainly wouldn't have failed to check that Jessie was suitably constrained. I make my way out across the driveway and then I stop, but I don't hear any sound of Jessie's trailing chains. She's hurt and scared, and I'm convinced that I'd be able to hear her right now if she was simply running away, which means that she must be hiding somewhere. In many ways that's more annoying, because now I have to wait for her to make a mistake.

Heading back to the front door, I lean inside and switch on all the exterior lights. When I return to the driveway, the entire area around the house is now lit up like a Christmas tree but there's still no sign of her.

“Jessie!” I call out. “I know you're here. Listen, I think we can make a deal.”

She's never going to fall for this, of course, but I'm hoping to provoke her into making a mistake.

“I've got a new friend down there now,” I continue. “She was trying to save you and now she's unconscious. You didn't stop to try to help her, did you? You left her behind. I suppose you're just desperately trying to get away, but still... I would have thought that you'd feel compelled to give her a hand.”

Turning to look the other way, I still see no sign of her. I'm convinced that she's hiding somewhere and that at any moment I'll hear the chains rustling as she tries to run.

“You know what I have to do next, Jessie,” I add. “You saw what I did to that other girl when you first arrived. Now it's your turn, but... I'm not an inflexible man. I'm willing to strike a deal, but only if you can persuade me that you're trustworthy. Are you interested in trying to do that, Jessie? Are you interested in becoming the one who gets away?”

Stepping past my car, I try to work out which way she was most likely to run once she was out of the house. She must have come through the front door, and then she most likely dropped down behind the bushes somewhere nearby. Hell, she could be only ten or twenty feet away right now, and I'm quite surprised that I can't hear her frantic, ragged breaths. I remain silent for a few seconds, listening carefully, but I have to admit that she's doing a good job of hiding.

I might use her as a character in my next book.

“I admit that I haven't quite been myself lately,” I tell her. “I don't know whether you picked up on that. I had a little... medical issue that thankfully has now been fully resolved, I'm on top of it all, so any window of opportunity you might have spied is now well and truly closed. I'm back to full power, as you might say, but that doesn't mean that I'm not willing to negotiate. Come out and speak to me, and we might be able to come up with a deal. Otherwise, you need to know that I will catch you. And you know what'll happen after that. I -”

Before I can finish, I hear a rumbling sound. As I turn to look at the road, I'm shocked by the sight of car headlights heading this way. My mind immediately starts racing as I realize that Sophie might have called someone and arranged for them to meet her out here. I tell myself that there's still a way to get out of this situation, even as the headlights almost blind me and the car comes to a bumping halt just a few meters away.

“Who the fuck is this?” I sneer under my breath.

***

“I was just passing,” Detective Inspector Robinson says as he slams the car door shut, “and I thought I'd drop by. I was going to call, but I always prefer doing these things in person.”

“How can I help you?” I ask, somehow managing to remain completely calm even though I'm expecting Jessie to scream for help at any moment.

“I could've done this tomorrow morning,” Robinson continues, “but to be honest... I know how silly it'll sound, but we've got orders from up high to focus on cases where we're more likely to get immediate results. I'm sorry, I shouldn't bore you with the details, Mr. Linton, but -”

“No, it's fine,” I reply, interrupting him. “It's late, though. What exactly brings you here?”

“We got the results back from the burglary here at your house,” he explains. “From the D.N.A. tests. Now, based on some prior matches that were already in the system, it would seem that your assailant was a local girl named Jessica Ballantyne who has actually been missing for quite some time.”

“You don't say,” I murmur.

Taking his phone out, he taps at the screen for a moment before holding it up for me to see. I spot a photo of a smiling Jessica, taken in better times; I've seen this photo before, of course, since I like to keep track of the various cases online.

“Do you think that could be the girl who attacked you?” he asks.

“It's hard to be sure,” I say, trying to sound convincing with my lie, “but... yes, I think it might be. Obviously when I met her, she was in a much more disheveled state. I've got to ask, though... why would she have been in my home? How did she get here?”

“That's what I've been wondering.”

“And where did she go?”

“Another good question.”

“And why did she attack me?” I continue, keenly aware that I need to elaborate. “There was something in her eyes, though. I'm not sure quite how to describe it, but it was perhaps a kind of madness. What if – and I'm only hypothesizing here – but what if she escaped from someone who held her prisoner, but her mind was so wrecked that she viewed every man as a potential threat?”

“You write books, don't you?” Robinson replies. “My wife reads a lot. She's heard of you. She told me it sounds a bit like something that could happen in one of your stories.”

“I suppose there's some similarity,” I admit, reaching into my pocket but finding that my piano wire is missing.

“So do you think that's something that could happen?” he continues. “The thing about her being scared of any man, I mean... I guess what worries me is that she somehow escaped from whoever kidnapped her, then she got here and instead of asking for help she attacked you, and then she ran off again. In which case, where the hell did she go next? Is she still out there hiding in the forest? Did her abductor track her down again?”

I open my mouth to tell him that I really couldn't say, but in that moment I realize that the piano wire isn't in my other pocket either. I dimly remember throwing it away, which is annoying, but fortunately this Robinson fellow doesn't strike me as the sharpest knife in the block. In fact, unless he's putting on some kind of facade, he seems to be rather uniquely stupid.

“I feel like an opportunity has been missed,” he says, turning and looking out into the forest. “I should have been onto this possibility sooner.”

“Don't beat yourself up about it,” I reply.

“Were there any other clues?” he asks. “Can you think of anything she said or did that might hint at where she's been, or at her state of mind?”

“I told you everything I noticed,” I lie, before deciding to add a sprinkling of the truth. “To be honest, I'm still carrying a few of the injuries from that night. I went to the A&E but they were hopelessly busy, I'd probably still be there right now if I'd decided to wait. Something really has to be done about the health system in this country, because it's beyond a joke. I mean, I can afford private coverage but what about the millions who can't? A sick workforce benefits nobody, am I right?”

He stares at me for a moment, and I can't help worrying that I might have become a little unconvincing.

“Do you know what I think?” he asks finally, before stepping closer as if he's worried about being overheard. “I think we should go fully private, like they do in America. With some changes, obviously, but right now it's way too easy for people to game the system in this country.”

“You think so?” I reply, surprised that he seems more interested in a political discussion than in talking more about the case.

“I see it every day, man,” he continues, shaking his head. “We need a big shock to the system here and we need to rethink how we do everything. All those politicians in Westminster are the same, they're too busy keeping their heads in the trough to actually try to fix anything. Look at the current lot, they're as bad as the ones who were in before and they're never gonna change. Listen, I really shouldn't be talking about this while I'm technically working, but I think you might be the kind of guy who's open to real change. I'm a member of a local -”

Suddenly we both hear chains rattling, and I turn just in time to see Jessie racing away through the forest. For a moment the sight is so bizarre that I actually don't immediately spring into action.

“What the hell?” Robinson stammers. “Who -”

Before he can get another word out, I grab his head and twist hard, instantly breaking his neck. He lets out one final gasp, and then I check that he has no pulse before letting his dead body slump down to the ground. I really didn't want to have to deal with another corpse and another car, but he didn't leave me with much choice. I'll get to that later, however, because right now Jessie is running away and I've almost lost sight of her.

As I step over Robinson's corpse and set off in pursuit, I'm at least thankful that he didn't cause more trouble. Fortunately it's so easy to kill someone with your bare hands, even when you don't have your lucky piano wire.

Chapter Fifty

I can hear her frantic breaths now – coupled with the sound of jangling chains – as she runs through the forest. Every few seconds I spot her racing through the moonlight and I can already tell that I'm catching up to her.

Like a lion.

I'm in hunting mode right now, which is one of my favorite states. As much as I consider myself to be a very cerebral person, I'm more than capable of springing into action when the need arises, and I keep myself fit so that I'm fully able to strike. As much as I love my reputation as a man of letters, I'm also extremely proud of that fact that I can move speedily through the forest – sometimes on all fours – like some kind of hunting monster.

Like the apex predator that I am.

Stopping for a moment, I listen to the sound of Jessie's chains, which are undoubtedly holding her back a little. After just a fraction of a second I realize that she's slightly to my east, so I change direction slightly and set off after her once more. I can feel my heart racing and I know she has no way of escaping now, so as I dart between the trees I allow a sense of anticipation to build in my chest until -

Suddenly seeing her standing ahead, I stop and reach out to steady myself against a tree. Although she's just a few meters away now and standing in a patch of moonlight, I can tell that something has changed and a moment later I realize that she's at the edge of a small cliff. I'm not sure how far the drop is over the other side, but some of the cliffs out here can loom twenty or more feet above hard, rocky ground.

I hesitate for a moment before taking a step forward, and Jessie instantly spins around to glare at me.

“Hey,” I say, holding both my hands up to show her that I'm unarmed. I'm still hyper dangerous without a weapon, of course, but I need to lull her into a false sense of security. “Easy there. Let's not make any sudden moves.”

She stares back at me for a few seconds, but I can already tell that she's sobbing. Tears are streaming down her face and her chest is convulsing with each wave of sorrow.

“You could have called out back there,” I continue. “You saw me talking to that policeman, didn't you? You could have called for help but instead you ran. I was right, wasn't I? Your mind's so broken, you couldn't even see that he was on your side.”

She tries to say something, but her bottom lip is trembling so much that no words can emerge.

“Was it the same with Sophie in the basement?” I ask. “Could you not even trust a fellow young woman? Is that how far your mind is gone now?”

“Please,” she whimpers, slowly shaking her head. “Just... please...”

She sounds broken, as if she no longer has any hope.

“It's all going to be okay,” I reply, although in that moment I can't help thinking back to the very first time I ever saw her, back when she was a smiling and happy cashier in a department store about fifty miles from here. “You don't have to do anything, okay? You've tried to run away twice now and it hasn't worked, so you must see that there's no point trying again. Instead I want you to come back to the house with me and we'll... I don't know, we'll try to figure something out.”

I wait for an answer, but I can see from the look in her eyes that her mind is absolutely shattered. I've never seen one of my guests like this before, although I suppose none of them ever managed to get away twice before. Those little bursts of hope – always dashed, always coming to nothing – must have taken a real toll on Jessie's heart and head.

“Where else are you going to go?” I ask, trying to reason with her. “Out there, into the forest? Do you even know which way to go? Clearly not, because you've pretty much been running away from any roads this whole time. Do you know what would happen if you kept going?”

Again I wait, and I'm starting to hope that I might have begun to get through to her.

“You'd just die out there,” I continue. “You'd fall, or worse you'd starve. There aren't many big predators in this part of the world – myself excluded, of course – so the elements would most likely get you. Do you have any idea what it's like to starve to death, Jessie? I've done my research and it's apparently one of the slowest and most painful ways to go. Then again, there's a cold snap coming in soon, so you might freeze instead. Do you think that would be any better? Because it wouldn't. You have no good options right now. Your only hope...”

I hesitate before stepping forward and reaching a hand out.

“Your only hope,” I go on, “is to trust me. And to come back to the house.”

She starts shaking her head. She's still trying to speak, but once again she's crying too hard to get any words out at all.

“Jessie,” I say firmly, taking another step forward her, “I want you to listen to me very carefully. I am your only -”

Suddenly she leans back. I see the fear in her eyes at the last second, but I'm not close enough to stop her. She topples over the edge of the cliff with the chains rattling after her, and a moment later I hear a loud thud.

“Damn it,” I whisper, before stepping to the edge and looking down.

In the moonlight, I'm just about able to see her broken body down below. She fell about thirty feet and, as I feared, she landed on a patch of rocky ground. It's clear already that she's dead, which is useful, although the unbroken line from my very first guest has now been interrupted. I would have so enjoyed killing Jessie in front of Sophie and now that opportunity has been rudely taken away from me, something that I'll probably never quite be able to get over. I'll always have that niggling knowledge that in the end Jessie managed to get away from me on her own terms, which isn't how it's ever supposed to happen.

I'm in charge. Always. Damn this bitch for taking matters into her own hands.

***

By the time I've carried Jessie's crumpled body back to the house, I've already started to come up with the outline of a plan.

Jessie herself will be easy enough to dispose of, since I can simply toss her down into the basement with her predecessors. The ritual passing of the torch might still be possible, since she's still warm and rigor mortis hasn't set in yet. Robinson's body is on the ground near the house and he can go in a grave just like Zac and Stacy – along with some gritting salt, which I've fortunately got loads of. The good thing about gritting salt in this context is that if you mix it with a few other things it can really mask the smell of dead bodies – and that's useful, especially if police dogs start sniffing around.

Robinson's car is more of an issue, and I'm a little worried that someone might be able to track it, but it's just some dumb local force so I'm going to once again rely upon their fallibility.

I'll drive the car away from here and dump it, and to be honest I doubt the morons will be able to figure out that it was ever on my property. And even if they do, I back myself to come up with an explanation. I've always been good at talking my way out of tricky situations.

Once I'm inside the house, I take Jessie to the basement, where Sophie is still unconscious. I put Jessie with the other girls before dragging Sophie through. Once I've stripped her down and chained her up, I prop Sophie in the corner and then I fetch the necessary knives from the counter in the next room. Ideally I'd like to wait for Sophie to wake up before the next part, but the timings aren't quite going to match so I tell myself that I'm just going to have to compromise.

Reaching down, I slide the knife into Jessie's gut and start cutting. After a moment I reach my hands into the bloody mess and fumble until I feel her ribs, and then I start pulling the bones aside. I have to push harder than usual, and the pain in my own chest hold me back a little, but finally I feel and hear the satisfying snapping of several of her ribs.

“You're really missing out,” I tell Sophie, “but you're clearly a smart girl. I know that you'll understand once you finally wake up. Speaking of which, remind me to gag you in a moment. All the screaming can really get on my nerves.”

I allow myself to play with Jessie's corpse for a few more minutes, pushing my fingers deep into her guts and feeling not only her intestines but also her kidneys, liver and stomach. At first her organs are quite warm, but gradually they start to cool down. Ordinarily, of course, I would spend so much more time doing this, but there's this nagging awareness in the back of my mind that I really need to deal with Robinson and his car. That whole kerfuffle is going to be such a bore, but I need to get on with it.

Finally I shove Jessie aside and step over to Sophie. Reaching down, I wipe some blood from Jessie's guts across Sophie's face, and then I can't help but smile as I turn and head out of the chamber.

“Sleep it off,” I murmur. “There's plenty of time. We've got a lot of fun ahead of us.”

Chapter Fifty-One

“A police spokesman stated that all possibilities are being discussed and that the investigation is pursuing a number of leads.”

As the news broadcast moves on to another story, I can't help but smile. Several days have passed now since the first mentions of Mr. Robinson's disappearance and so far all my little diversionary tactics have worked. I managed to reconfigure the tracking system on his car – thanks to some stuff I learned from the internet – and the police seem to be focusing their search on an area about eighty miles from here. Part of me is surprised at how easy it is to trick those fools, but then again, I should have learned by now that I always manage to pull these things off.

I'm the king.

The boss.

The best.

Looking over at the window, I see the cold forest waiting out there in the morning light. I think of Zac, Stacy and Robinson's bodies rotting under the soil, and once again a faint smile curls across my lips. And as I raise my morning cup of tea and take a sip, I have to admit that I feel utterly relaxed.

When I'm working well – I mean when my mind and body are really in sync – I'm a beast. No, I'm more than a beast. I know I'm probably getting ahead of myself a little and that it's important to remain humble, but I genuinely consider myself to be an apex predator. All those other fools are just running around at my feet, trying their best to escape me or outsmart me, and I always get them exactly where I want them. There's a part of me that sometimes wishes I could blow this whole thing open and brag about my achievements, but deep down I know I just have to be content with the real rewards.

Speaking of which, as I glance out into the hall and see the door leading down to the basement, I remind myself that I've got some fun lined up for this afternoon. I need to pop into town and pick up a few things, but then Sophie and I are going to spend a few hours together.

After finishing the last of my tea, I rinse the cup in the sink and head out of the kitchen. My feet almost feel light, as if I'm walking on clouds, and as I slip into my jacket I can't help but catch my reflection in the mirror by the door. So this is what a genius looks like, huh? I got an email earlier from my new agent, some puppyish little newbie who's taken over from Stacy, and I need to reply at some point and tell him that I've already started the next book. The idea came to me the other night while I was in London and I truly believe that it's going to be my best work yet.

Heading to the door, I reach out to grab my keys from the bowl, only to find that there's no sign of them.

I put my hands in my pockets, but there are no keys there either. Confused, I turn and walk back into the kitchen and I tell myself that there's no reason to panic. People lose their keys all the time; I mean, I don't – but there's a first time for everything, right? Yet as I start hunting for the damn things, I feel an irritating sense of fear starting to ripple up through my belly and into my chest.

“Where the fuck are you?” I mutter as I storm into the front room.

Turning, I'm about to go back and try the kitchen again when I glance outside and see my car. I freeze, and in that moment I realize that the driver's side door is wide open.

“No,” I murmur, rushing out of the house and running to the car, where I stop and see that the keys are still in the ignition.

“No,” I say again, telling myself that there's no way I can possibly have left them here after I got back from the shops yesterday afternoon. I simply do not make mistakes like this.

Chapter Fifty-Two

“No, Tom,” Doctor Jordan says over the phone, “I can't do that. The injection I gave you was from a new study that's specifically designed to be given every few months. It would be unsafe to give you another so -”

“I don't give a damn,” I say firmly, still trying to stay calm as my phone rests on the kitchen counter. “I need another injection and I need it today.”

“Tom...”

His voice trails off for a moment and I can already tell that he's going to come up with some damn stupid nonsense. Why am I always stuck dealing with these weak minds?

“Tom,” he continues, “I warned you that I was worried this might happen. If the injection had brought lasting improvements, that would have been one thing, but I was concerned from the start that there are two different issues at play here. The fact that the injection's effects are already wearing off only confirms my suspicions, and to be honest I suspect that the initial improvement was largely driven by expectation more than anything else. Yes, you probably have a minor B12 deficiency, but I'm certain now that there's something else going on as well.”

“Bullshit,” I whisper.

“We need to schedule some proper tests,” he goes on, “and then we'll isolate the exact problem and figure out where to go from there. Tom, I know you don't like talking about this, but the fact that your parents both experienced similar symptoms can't be just written off as some kind of coincidence. I truly believe that we can help you, but only if you agree to the tests I'm suggesting.”

“That's bullshit,” I sneer. “Fine, if you won't help me, I'll go to another doctor and get the injection I need.”

“You'll only get temporary relief at best, and then you'll be right back in this same situation.” He lets out a long, heavy sigh. “Tom, why don't we set up an appointment so we can discuss this face to face? I have a number of positive ideas for tests that we need to run and then -”

“Why don't you shut up?” I snarl, interrupting him before he can issue another pathetic suggestion. “We already established what works, it's that B12 thing. It made me go right back to normal, so I don't understand why we can't just keep doing it.”

“The type of B12 injection I gave you can't possibly be wearing off yet,” he replies. “I told you, it was a new experimental dose that should last for much longer. Clearly the change brought some brief improvements but now something else is breaking through. Tom, we need to be looking for signs of early onset dementia. I know that sounds scary but there are lots of things we can do to try to mitigate the impact and slow it down.”

“Slow it down?” I murmur through gritted teeth. “I don't want to slow it down. I want to get rid of it!”

I wait for an answer, but I can already tell that this asshole is set in his ways. He calls himself a doctor but really he just reads things off computer screens. When it comes to anything new or unusual, he's completely hopeless, and I'm damn well not going to keep paying his private fees if he can't think outside the box.

“Tom, are you listening to me?” he continues. “I think -”

“I think I'm going to shop around,” I tell him, before cutting the call. “Shove your so-called professional opinion up your ass.”

Taking a deep breath, I stand at the kitchen counter and stare at my phone. I know I should already be calling other doctors, but for a few seconds I feel a kind of uncontrollable rage spreading through my body. Finally I turn to go to the basement, only to stop as I see what appears to be a bag of shopping on the counter. I haven't been to the shops today, and when I go over to look inside the bag I see that it contains the milk and other items I picked up yesterday. How has this thing been sitting out for twenty-four hours? Reaching in, I take out the fish I bought and find that it's at room temperature now. I should have noticed this bag last night or this morning, yet apparently it has been sitting here all along.

“No,” I whisper, shaking my head slowly as I feel my clarity starting to dim. “I refuse to be like this. They're wrong, all of them. There's nothing wrong with me that another injection won't fix. And if that moron Jordan won't help me, then...”

I hesitate for a moment, before grabbing the bag and throwing it across the room, sending it smashing against the fridge. When that fails to dissipate the rage in my bones, I pick up the tray of glasses next to the sink and launch them at the wall. The glasses smash, sending a cascade of shards down onto the floor, but somehow the anger is only getting stronger and stronger.

Storming over to the other counter, I grab the various pots and bowls and push them over the edge, and then I pick up the bin and throw it at the window. The bin simply tumbles down onto the floor, and I already know that smashing the kitchen up isn't going to help anything. Still, it's better than standing around like a complete fool, so I grab one of the stools from the breakfast bar and throw it as far as I can. Letting out an angry cry, I watch as the stool hits the far doorway and drops down, and then I storm over to another counter and pick up my phone.

I'm going to call another -

In that moment I freeze. Staring at my phone, I know that I was about to make an important call, but somehow I've forgotten all the details.

“No no no,” I say firmly, convinced that the information is about to come back to me at any moment. “Fuck you, you don't get to do this to me.”

As I wait, however, I feel as if a hole is growing in my mind. The more I fight back, the more the hole seems to be spreading out and taking over. Standing at the counter and staring at my phone, I tell myself again that I'll remember any second now. I just need to be calm and patient, and I need to wait for my memories to return.

Which they will.

They have to.

They'll all come flooding back any second now. I just have to wait and not panic.

Epilogue

One week later...

Damn it, did I forget something?

As the car bumps along the rough gravel road, I see the house coming into view up ahead and everything immediately feels better. After a few days in London I always feel as if I'm coming home when I get here; London might have been the place for me when I was a young wannabe writer, but as a mid-forties established novelist I've got better things to do than chase girls who just want to get some likes for an Insta post. Whatever the hell Insta is, anyway – or that Tik thing that I don't understand either.

I wish I could shake the sense that I forgot something, but I'm sure it's nothing important.

After bringing the car to a halt, I cut the engine and climb out. Already the air out here smells so much fresher than any of the polluted crap that filled my lungs in London. I take a moment to breathe in and out very deeply, and then I slam the car door shut with a renewed sense of purpose. Once that's done I wait again, enjoying the sound of peace and quiet as I tell myself that this time I won't allow myself any distractions. Already, after just a couple of seconds, I feel so much better. I'm going to get that damn book started and I'm going to relax and detox out here.

And I'm not going to let anything distract me.

***

“Listen,” I continue, glancing at my phone as I head across the kitchen, “Jack, I think we need to reset a little. I know our working relationship is new and it's not that I'm trying to enforce my ideas on you, but you need to understand that Stacy and I had a very good rapport.”

Opening the fridge door, I take out some milk and give it a sniff. Deciding that it seems to be just about okay, I carry it back over to the counter so that I can get on with making my tea.

“That last book I sent to her is a masterpiece,” I continue. “As far as I'm concerned, at least. It's everything I set out to write and more, so while I appreciate your notes, I don't want to make any changes. My readers know what they're getting from me. Let's not reinvent the wheel here.”

“I appreciate that, Mr. Linton,” the guy replies, and once again I'm annoyed by how young he sounds. “It's just that I think with a few tweaks here and there, based on the summary you provided, this can be even better. The summary's actually really interesting. I totally agree with you that it's a great story and I want to push it heavily, but these small changes might steer it back toward what the market expects.”

“Screw the market,” I say with a smile as I pour some milk into my tea. “I know what the market wants, even if the market itself doesn't have a clue. It's like I always used to say to -”

Stopping suddenly, I realize that I don't quite remember my former agent's name. I stare into space, before hearing a splatting sound and looking down to see that I've overfilled the mug.

“Fuck,” I mutter, setting the milk aside and grabbing a tea towel, which I use to quickly mop up the mess.

“I got the opening part of your new novel in front of me right now,” Jack continues, sounding a little concerned. “Mr. Linton, obviously I'm not used to your way of working, but is this the file you intended to send me? It's just that it seems more like a bunch of notes and they don't seem to match the summary that got me so excited.”

“It's the first three chapters,” I tell him, still trying to remember my former – and apparently missing – agent's name.

Suzie?

Sally?

I know it was something like that.

“The first part of the first chapter's really... solid,” Jack goes on, “but then it gets much harder to read. Could you take another look and maybe tidy it up a little? There are so many typos and -”

“There are no typos,” I tell him firmly. “I don't do typos. Everything -”

Before I can finish, I hear the sound of a car approaching. Looking out the window, I spot a dark car pulling up outside. While I'm certainly not in the mood for visitors, part of me is actually relieved that I now have an excuse to end this call with Jack.

“I've gotta go,” I tell him. “Take another look at what I sent you, okay? It's good stuff and as my agent, you need to get used to my way of doing things. I'm sure you'll figure it out eventually. And if you still don't get it, maybe share it with someone older who has more experience.”

I cut the call before he can launch into any more inane nonsense, and then I watch as a well-dressed man walks toward the front door. He spots me watching him and offers a brief wave, but I can only wait as he steps out of view. A few seconds later the doorbell rings and I realize that I really can't pretend that I'm not home.

As I make my way to the hall, I still can't quite remember the name of my old agent.

Sindy?

Sammie?

Pulling the door open, I find myself face to face with my unexpected visitor.

“Mr. Linton?” he says with a professional smile.

“Tom Linton, that's right,” I reply, figuring that I'll remember my former agent's name eventually. “How can I help you?”

***

“I'm Detective Inspector Carter,” he says, holding up a badge as a second, younger man climbs out of the car and starts making his way over join us, “and this is Detective Sergeant Cavanagh. We're in the area asking a few questions about some individuals we're trying to track down.”

“Individuals?” I reply, puzzled.

“A young man by the name of Zachary Taylor disappeared a few weeks ago,” he continues. “His vehicle was found not far from here and we're going door to door, trying to find out if anyone remembers seeing him.”

“I'm afraid I don't really see anyone out here,” I tell him. “As you can see, it's pretty remote. And if someone had come knocking, I'd definitely remember since... well, since it's so unusual. There's really not much of a -”

Before I can finish, I spot another figure in the distance. A young guy is standing out in the forest, perhaps eighty or a hundred feet away, and he seems to be simply staring at me. I blink and he's gone, and I quickly tell myself that the whole thing must have been a trick of the light.

“Mr. Linton?”

Startled, I turn to see that the two policemen – whose names I don't remember – are watching me with a hint of concern.

“Mr. Linton, are you okay there?” the older man asks.

“I'm fine,” I tell him, briefly glancing into the forest to make sure that the weird hallucination is gone, then turning to him again. “Sorry, I just got distracted for a moment. That's the thing about being a writer, sometimes it can be hard to shake yourself back into the real world after you've been typing away for a few hours.”

I wait for him to make some innocuous remark, but the pair of them are simply staring at me.

“You might have heard of me,” I continue. “I'm not exactly Crichton or Patterson, but some of my books have been optioned for -”

“That's nice, Mr. Linton,” the older policeman says, “but I'm afraid we need to ask you a few more questions.”

He hold up a photo of a man wearing a dark suit.

“We're also looking into the disappearance of one of our colleagues. Detective Inspector George Robinson's car was found abandoned recently and there has been no sign of him. We've managed to access the tracking data and... well, one of our tech people believes that it might have been altered. We want to ascertain whether his vehicle might have been anywhere around here recently. Specifically on your property.”

“Not that I'm aware,” I tell him. “I mean, I've been in London for a few days so someone could have driven up here but -”

“I'll need the dates you were in London,” he continues, interrupting me – and I can't help but feel that this seems a little more formal than a casual visit. “Mr. Linton, we need to ask you a few more questions. We could do that down at the station, but I'm also happy to just come inside and talk here. Would that be alright with you?”

***

I open my mouth to ask exactly what he means, but at the very last second I realize that I can't exactly refuse. Besides, it's not as if I've got anything to hide.

“Sure,” I say, stepping aside and gesturing for them to both step inside. “I just put the kettle on, actually. Can I make anything for you guys?”

“No, thank you,” he says as he and his associate enter the house.

“Please, go through to the front room,” I tell them as I head to the kitchen. “I'll just grab my tea and then I'll join you.”

Once I reach the kitchen, I stop at the counter and tell myself to calm down. I don't know why, but for some reason I can feel this wave of panic starting to rise up through my body. I have no reason to panic, of course, yet the sensation persists and I'm worried that these policemen can tell that something's wrong.

“Pull yourself together,” I whisper under my breath. “You're not -”

In that moment, glancing at the oven door, I see not only my own reflection in the dark door but also the reflection of a naked girl. Spinning round, I open my mouth to cry out, only to find that there's nobody standing behind me at all. I check the reflection again and see only myself, and then – determined to stay calm – I grab my mug of tea and walk back through to the hallway.

Just as I'm about to go into the front room, I spot something glinting on the floor. Stepping over, I find that there's a single earring next to the door that leads down into the basement. Reaching down and picking the earring up, I find that it's a picture frame-style design with what looks to be an art deco moon in the middle. The metal hook, meanwhile, is slightly twisted and appears to have a small amount of dried blood on one edge.

***

“Mr. Linton?” the detective says, and I turn to see that he's standing in the doorway. He's staring at me, and a moment later his gaze falls upon the stray earrings – which I've never seen before in my life. “What's that you've got there?”

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