After I’d taken Dylan back home, I met up with Darren. He’d entered a competition and won VIP tickets for a modern opera, entitled The Pole Vaulter of Turin. We watched it from one of the balcony boxes. Our tickets meant we avoided the crowds and the queues and got served first at half-time. Darren pointed to his ticket and said the phrase ‘access all arias’ ten times in the course of the evening.

Neither of us had a clue what was going on. It was like This Bridge No Hands Shall Cleave with added wigs, make-up and mezzo-sopranos. The only scenes I vaguely understood were the death ones, of which there were six, although I had no understanding of who was dying, or for what reason.

Everywhere I go, it seems, death is never far behind. It never used to be like this. Perhaps Mrs McNulty is right after all.

Sunday October 28th

I know I should be doing all I can to establish my innocence with DI Lansbury and Sergeant Tuck but it feels like I’ve reached a dead end. I left messages with Mary, Chandrima and Kaylee to see if they might have any theories about what may have happened to him but unsurprisingly none of them have called me back.

I reached for the crossword instead. There were still seven clues I had yet to solve. I looked at the most recent words I’d written into the grid from a few weeks ago – APANTHROPY, LOGANAMNOSIS, CLEPSYDRA. I could no longer remember what any of these words meant. I stared at it for ten minutes until the black and white squares began to swirl in front of me like a revolving chessboard and I threw it on the floor in disgust.

Why did I bother with it?

Monday October 29th

Haiku Horrorscopes

Mrs McNulty has posted her customary Halloween horoscopes through the door. She has highlighted Cancer with a green marker pen. It reads: