Tonight, the enforced inactivity and boredom was wearing Frank out, but he was finding it difficult to sleep in the airless, stale-smelling room, even though he had stripped down to his underwear and was lying on top of the bed. It was gone midnight when he heard the familiar creak of bedsprings and the low murmur of voices through the wall. Unwilling to listen to any more of the disgusting grunting he’d been subjected to all week, he rolled over and plucked a cotton wool ball out of the bag Maureen had kept in her bedside cabinet. As he was about to plug his ears, a shrill whistle rose up from the front of the house, followed, a few seconds later, by the thunder of footsteps running up the stairs.

Sliding off the bed at the sound of someone rapping sharply on Irena’s bedroom door, Frank rushed over to the door – praying that she would wake up and catch Karel red-handed as he came out of the girl’s room. Disappointed when Karel emerged onto the landing before she did, he pressed his ear against the wood in time to hear Karel hiss, ‘What the fuck’s all the noise about?’

‘Someone’s coming,’ a man replied quietly. ‘I was out front and saw headlights coming this way. And it’s definitely not Nick, ’cos they were too low down for a van.’

Irena’s door suddenly opened, and Frank could hear the sleep in her voice when she asked what was going on.

‘Someone’s coming,’ Karel told her. ‘Go down and get rid of them.’

A vehicle turned onto the drive and came to a stop, and Frank heard its door slam shut and someone walk heavily across the gravel. The doorbell rang, and Irena answered it. Her voice was too low for Frank to hear what she was saying, but he had no such problem with the caller’s voice, and his heart lurched when he realized it was his daughter-in-law. Marie never visited of her own accord, so he wondered if Evan had sent her to pick up the bits and pieces he’d left behind. Or maybe something had happened, and she’d come to deliver the bad news?

Dreading it being the latter, Frank jerked away from the door when the key turned in the lock. It was Karel, and he had the shotgun in his hands.

‘You’ve got a visitor,’ he hissed. ‘Get dressed.’

‘It’s my son’s wife,’ Frank said, quickly pulling his pyjama bottoms and dressing gown on. ‘Evan’s probably sent her to pick his stuff up.’

‘Get rid of her, or I’ll kill her,’ Karel warned, shoving him out onto the landing with the barrel of the gun digging into his spine.

Marie was demanding to speak to Evan when Frank reached the hallway. Forcing himself to act naturally, he walked up alongside Irena and gave his daughter-in-law a questioning smile.