A vile thought assaulted her, triggering a string of humiliating possibilities.

What if he’s got a Facebook page? What if he’s done it for a bet? What if he posts my picture? What if he tells the whole wide world what a fool I’ve been?

She could see the pitying looks of her new colleagues in the office of Doherty Properties and Estates, hear the silence that greeted her in a thousand dismal places.

Francesca opened the driver’s door of her car and made a decision.

No more internet dating, ever. Loneliness, though brutal, was better than humiliation. First job, as she stepped over the doorway of home, take down her profile from Pebbles On The Beach. The bitter end.

‘Excuse me!’ The voice was insistent but polite, mechanical and androgynous.

She turned, felt like she’d been hit in the face by a brick. Her legs gave way and the thing behind her held her up, turned her round and bundled her into the driver’s seat, closing the door after her as the back door opened.

Lights went on and off in her head as she placed the key in the ignition, tried to get the car started, but it was too late.

The back door of her car slammed shut.

‘I am The Ghoul.’

Sitting right behind her, oozing into the pores at the back of her neck, she felt breath, hot and insistent.

‘Get the car started, Francesca.’ She turned the key in the ignition.

In the rear-view mirror, two points of light danced immediately behind her, a pair of eyes lurking in the dark.

She shuddered and her stomach turned when a large hand landed on her right shoulder and there was a sharpness against her throat, a lethal edge of a sharpened blade.

‘Hello, Francesca. Can you hear me?’

She nodded, felt the roll of the edge of the blade pressing left to right and back again.

‘This is what you’re going to do. If you don’t do as you’re told, you will die.’

She heard words and found herself driving down a straight stretch of road that ran parallel to the Mersey, Riverside Drive, and knew she was following instructions.

As she came up to the Britannia pub, a marked police car came in her direction, heading towards the city centre, and as quickly as wild hope blossomed inside her, so did The Ghoul’s mounting rage, translated into harsh language spat into her neck as the blade came away from her throat.

‘Don’t even look sideways, don’t even think about trying to attract their attention. Look at me! Look at me! Lurrraaammmeeee…’

Eternity passed in a handful of seconds.

She pulled up at the roundabout at the bottom of Jericho Lane and watched a car turn off, heading in the direction of Aigburth.

‘Wait!’