But as she reached out, picking up a length of pale-yellow hair and raising it close to her eyes, she knew the colour; she knew the feel of it, and she knew the scent of it too. There was no room for denial, however tempting. The hair had been sheared from Lottie’s head recently.

Megan knew it with total, unrelenting certainty, and she understood that some unseen person was playing with her sanity. Somebody with absolutely no concerns for society’s usual conventions of decency. Someone who would go to any lengths to make her life even more of a misery than it had already become. Who would do such a terrible thing? She searched her mind but without resolution. Whoever it was must hate her so very much.

Megan was weeping as she looked up to see the writing on the wall. She crept towards it, one cautious step at a time, asking herself how she hadn’t seen it as soon as she entered the room. As she began reading, she became acutely aware that the writer of those awful words may still be in the house. He may be watching her. Feeding on her vulnerability and ready to pounce. A small part of her hoped that he was. That she’d have the opportunity to confront him, to see his face. She felt ready to fight despite her fear. Prepared to do whatever it took to overcome her oppressor in the name of her daughter, do or die, life or the grave.

Megan rushed to the kitchen, where she picked up a ten-inch bread knife, clutching it tightly in her right hand. She returned to the lounge to continue reading, willing him to appear. She read one line after another, stopping briefly and then starting again when the emotional impact of the written words became too much to bear. She’d read the entire message twice before she could fully take it in, feeling more hate for its author than she’d ever thought possible.

Megan pictured the mystery man of her worst nightmare at her feet, hog-tied and at her mercy to do with whatever she wished. She imagined herself unleashing untold suffering upon him without pity until he revealed Lottie’s whereabouts to set her free. Megan saw it all in her mind’s eye and willed it to become true, manifested by thought and heightened emotion alone.

She studied the writing style, asking herself if it were in any way familiar.

Megan thought of Lottie, vulnerable, innocent, lovely Lottie, in the hands of such a man, a monster capable of scribing such vile and ruthless words. The burden was too terrible to bear.

The reality too awful to contemplate. Megan gagged, swallowed, and gagged again as she hurried across the lounge, stumbling towards the downstairs toilet, where she threw up until her gut ached and there was nothing left but bile.

Megan still had the knife clutched tightly in her hand as she climbed the stairs one slow step at a time, urging herself on. One step, two steps, come on, Megan, you can do it, keep going, one more step, do it for Lottie, for your little girl.