Eve Clay sat at the dressing table in her bedroom and, staring into the mirror, wondered if she was gazing at herself or some other woman, a flirty blonde who had suddenly taken over her body. She studied the picture of Francesca Christie propped up against the mirror and carried on straightening her hair in the same style as the missing woman.

She looked through a range of shades of foundation and chose porcelain over ivory, the one most suited to Francesca Christie’s pale skin tone. Looking straight into the mirror, she carefully applied the base to her skin with a brush.

As she did so, she listened to the silence in the house and wished that Thomas and Philip were there to fill the empty space it triggered inside her.

Thomas was at the surgery and Philip was at a friend’s house for a birthday tea.

Clay spread the foundation evenly across her forehead, softening care-worn wrinkles that she usually didn’t have time to notice. She looked at the left-hand parting in her long blonde hair and the way the hair hung behind her ears.

There were four lipsticks in the dressing table drawer. Clay took them out and opened them to compare them to the shade on Francesca’s lips. She picked the palest red, almost bordering on a pink, and drew the flattened point over her top lip.

Wondering if Francesca Christie was still alive, Clay tried to give herself some grey reassurance and did the maths, based on The Ghoul’s past patterns. She drew mascara through her eyelashes as she concluded that if things stayed as they were, Francesca Christie’s body would show up on Monday, after she’d been killed and scalped on Sunday.

She checked the application of lipstick in the mirror and noted how it altered the dynamic of her mouth.

Standing in front of the full-length mirror on the wall, Clay saw that the coat of make-up had taken years off her and, though she could never pass for a woman in her mid twenties, she looked considerably younger than her usual forty plus years.

Clay opened her wardrobe and asked herself, what would I wear if I was going on a first date? She took out a black cocktail dress, a black coat and a pair of black flats. Opening the drawer of the wardrobe, she took out a pair of black tights and underwear, and placed the clothes in her overnight bag.

At her dressing table, she put the make-up bag in her handbag and assessed the space it took up. She was satisfied that there was more than enough room for a Glock handgun.

There was the sound of a key turning in the front door lock. She looked out of the window and saw Thomas’ car parked outside the house.