The knocking on the front door had ceased, but as she went down the stairs, there was the sound of breaking glass from the living-room. When she looked in he was smashing the window methodically with an old wooden clothes prop from the yard. She closed the door of the room, locked it on the outside and went up to the landing.

Her intention was quite clear. When he broke through the flimsy interior door, which wouldn’t take long, she would give him a sight of her and then run for the roof. If she could climb across to the metalworks and get down the fire escape there might still be a chance. In any case, she would have led him away from her grandmother.

The door suddenly burst outwards with a great splintering crash and Bruno Faulkner came through with it, fetching up against the opposite wall. He looked up at her for a long moment, his face grave, and started to unbutton his raincoat. He tossed it to one side and put his foot on the bottom step. There was an old wooden chair on the landing. Jenny picked it up and hurled it down at him. He ducked and it missed him, bouncing from the wall.

He looked up at her still calm and then howled like an animal, smashing the edge of his left hand hard against the wooden banister rail. The rail snapped in half, a sight so incredible that she screamed for the first time in her life.

She turned and ran along the landing to the second staircase and Faulkner went after her. At the top of the stairs she was delayed for a moment as she wrestled with the bolt on the door that led to the roof. As she got it open, he appeared at the bottom.

She ran out into the heavy rain, kicked off her shoes and started up the sloping roof, her stocking feet slipping on the wet tiles. She was almost at the top when she slipped back to the bottom. Again she tried, clawing desperately towards the ridge tiles as Faulkner appeared from the stairway.

She stuck half-way and stayed here, spread-eagled, caught like a fly on paper. And he knew it, that terrible man below. He came forward slowly and stood there looking up at her. And then he laughed and it was the coldest laugh she had ever heard in her life.

He started forward and the Gunner came through the door like a thunderbolt. Faulkner turned, swerved like a ballet dancer and sent him on his way with a back-handed blow that caught him across the shoulders. The Gunner lost his balance, went sprawling, rolled beneath the rail at the far end and went down the roof that sloped to the yard below.