‘Are you making me a cup of tea? Ah that’s lovely,’ a voice said, a male voice, a voice I recognised, coming from the direction of the armchair. I hadn’t looked when I came into the room, I hadn’t thought, couldn’t have imagined, and I was dizzy now, my mouth dry, a buzzing in my ears, black spots in my vision, my stomach churning. I stayed very still.

‘Lovely place you’ve got here,’ Jeremy Gill said. ‘But you should be more careful, Finn. There are a lot of bad people in the world, you know, and leaving your front door wide open is never a good idea, is it?’

The kettle had overflowed. I tipped out the excess water and put it back in its place. It clicked on automatically. I was still standing with my back to Gill. I looked to the right, in the direction of the knife block. It was empty. And my phone was on the coffee table at the far side of the room.

Jesus Jesus Jesus.

‘Now, now, not looking for a knife, Finn, are you? Come on. Knowing how you feel about me, I’m hardly going to leave lethal weapons lying around in easy reach, am I?’

‘Get out of my house,’ I said.

‘Get out of my house,’ I said again.

‘No need to shout, Finn,’ Gill said. ‘I’ll go. But not yet. I want us to have a little chat first. But I can’t talk to you when you’ve got your back to me. So would you like to turn around? Or would you like me to do the turning for you?’

In the silence that followed, I heard one slow footstep, and then a second, coming towards me. Then he stopped.

‘Are you going to look at me, Finn?’

‘Yes,’ I said, but softly.

‘I can’t hear you, Finn, I should probably get closer to you.’

I heard him take another slow step.

‘So, are you going to turn around, Finn?’ Gill asked, almost conversationally.

‘Yes,’ I said, louder this time, and I turned to face Gill, keeping contact with the worktop with my left hand, swivelling slowly on one foot and pressing my right hand back on the worktop as soon as I had completed the turn.

‘That’s good, Finn.’

He was standing in the middle of the room, his hands in the pockets of a short zipped black jacket, hood up, that he wore with black jeans and black boots. Behind him on the coffee table, scattered around my mobile phone like a bad student sculpture, the knives from the knife block glinted. How many were there? I couldn’t remember, and I was afraid to check the block again. Did he have one of the knives in his pocket? Or a screwdriver? He was going to use something, it didn’t matter what, and I was going to die, of that I was certain.