Patrick went to the window and stared outside. “I don’t see her,” he said. “Show me where.”

“Look in the bushes. See? She might be crouching down.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

He rushed to the door, threw it open, and was gone.

Lauren hoped he wouldn’t catch the woman. She hoped he would scare her away, so that she would leave them alone, but Lauren didn’t want to see her, to face her, to be forced to look at her up close again. She slipped to the carpet and hugged her knees, feeling blood pulse in the place the woman’s nails had torn her skin, listening to the babies breathing through the monitor.

Something in her pocket was digging into her leg. She pulled it out—there in her hand was a business card bearing a police logo. Detective Sergeant Joanna Harper, Greater Yorkshire Police CID. She remembered now, that policewoman who came to the hospital, who’d been kind to her. She’d given her the card before she left that day. Ring me anytime, she’d said, if anything unusual happens. Anything at all. Lauren found her phone in her other pocket and dialled the number.

“Hello?”

“Detective Harper?”

“Speaking.”

“I don’t know if you remember me, but we met last week, in the hospital. I’d called the police, in the night. They told me it wasn’t real, but she’s come back. She’s outside my house—she was staring at me. My husband’s chasing her now, but if he catches her I can’t have her in the house. She scares me, Harper. She wants to take my children—”

“Is that Mrs Tranter? Lauren?”

“What shall I do? Can you come? How does she even know where we live? She must be following me.”

“Lauren, calm down. Give me your address. I’ll be there as soon as I can, OK?”

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t know who to call. You said anytime …”

“It’s fine. Don’t worry. Just tell me where you are.”

Lauren told her the address and hung up. Soon there was the sound of her husband walking back towards the house. His head appeared in the doorway as he reached the top of the steps and bent to inspect the sole of one foot. Blood from a cut dripped onto the doorstep.

“Did she get away?” asked Lauren.

He paused before he answered, sliding his eyes sideways, considering. “Darling,” he said, “when you said it was the woman from the hospital, did you mean the one you saw in the middle of the night?”

“Yes, of course that one. The one that threatened me.”

“Ah. OK. I understand now, I’m so sorry. I thought you meant a real person.”

Lauren felt dizzy. “She is a real person. I saw her, she was right there.”