‘Now we can have our little talk.’

‘I have nothing to say to you,’ I said. ‘Anyway, I thought you were in custody.’

‘Oh I was,’ Gill said. ‘But they let me go. Had to. No evidence, you see. No evidence because I’m innocent. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about, actually. To ask you personally what is your fucking problem, you fucking cunt?’

I tried to press myself further back into the worktop but there was nowhere to go. Behind me, the kettle was coming to the boil as if nothing was wrong, as if my world hadn’t started to implode. I held on to the counter with both hands but it felt like the edge of a cliff.

‘Oh dear, Finn, you don’t like that word? Funny, it’s one of my favourites. And it’s never been more fucking appropriate, let me tell you.’

Gill took a step closer. Two more steps and he would be able to touch me. Three more and I would feel his breath on me. Four more steps and I would die.

‘They kept me longer in the station than my mother, wouldn’t even let me drop her home, get her settled. I had to get my solicitor to employ an agency nurse to stay with her. She’s a tough bird, but she is old now, an OAP, and you put her through that. I wanted you to hear it. You put my mother in a cell like she was some kind of junkie whore. All because of your deluded obsession with me. But I’ve told them about you, they know, the guards know what you are, you mad stalker bitch. And it’s only the beginning. I’m having a meeting with my lawyers later today, and we are going to rain down vengeance upon you, Finn. Your days practising law are over. And this house? It will please me no end to take it from you. Maybe I’ll keep it as a pied-à-terre.’

He paused.

‘Hang on, wait a minute, sorry – did you think I was here to kill you? Or rape you? Did you think that? Finn, when will you learn that I don’t do those terrible things.’

He smiled.

‘What I have in mind for you is going to be a lot worse. Slow and painful. In the end, you’ll pray for death, you’ll fucking beg for it.’

He took a step closer.

‘On the other hand. It would be so much kinder to put you out of your misery now.’

He leant forward. His long hair brushed against my face. He pressed his mouth against my left ear.

‘You’re the same,’ he whispered. ‘Ye’re all the fuckin’ same when ye’re stripped.’

I felt his gloved hand on my neck. Then his fingers tightened around my throat and I heard his breath, faster than before. I was paralysed.