I had called Charlie, who told me she was going to have to work late, wouldn’t be back till after eight at the earliest. I tried Sasha. She wasn’t answering. But I needed to talk to someone. If I didn’t see a friendly face I might be driven crazy by the voices in my head. Tilly. I would go to see Tilly. It would get me out of London too, if only for an evening. The news of Karen’s death had sent me spinning. In my head: a clamour of voices, swirling question marks, sparking connections. I couldn’t process it all, couldn’t think straight. I couldn’t even make sense of the displays and the announcements at the station, getting in everyone’s way as they tutted and pushed me. If you want to know what it would be like if civilisation broke down, go to a train station in London at rush hour, where it’s every man for himself, every woman too. The state I was in now, I would be one of the first to perish in a dog-eat-dog world. One of the first to die.

A dark spirit has attached itself to you.

Harold Franklin, Spiritualist – that was the job title on the business card he pressed into my palm when he saw me out – didn’t know how Karen had died.

‘It was all very mysterious,’ he said, trying to conceal how he relished the intrigue of it. ‘An ambulance turned up in the middle of the night. Next thing, they’re carrying her out . . . Two days later, her sister is here, cleaning out the fridge and no doubt helping herself to anything she fancied. All she told me was that Karen was dead. Such a pity. She was a beauty, wasn’t she?’

‘Can’t the spirits tell you what happened?’ I asked.

His face darkened. ‘There’s no need to take that attitude, young man.’ And with that, he ushered me out.

Somehow, I made it onto an Eastbourne-bound train, crammed in by the luggage racks. All the way to the coast, I kept picturing Karen the last time I’d seen her. She hadn’t looked well. Certainly not the vital, sexy woman I’d once known, the woman with a zest for life and a don’t-give-a-shit attitude. She had once told me that the most important lesson she’d learned in life was a simple one. ‘It’s short. Much too short. And I intend to make the most of every minute of it.’

She hadn’t realised how brief her own life would be. Karen was, what? Forty-one, I think. She should have been halfway through her time on this planet; not even that. What the hell had taken her away? How had it happened?

The train sped south, and questions ricocheted around my skull, almost making connections. Almost.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘That’s a nice greeting, sis.’