Heath placed the newspaper on the filthy floor of the attic room, positioning it so that the top half rested against the bars at an angle, the headline and date in clear view. He picked up the camera, checking the various technical settings for one final time. And then he began taking photos, one after another, using the entire thirty-six shot film, as Lottie stared through the metal bars. The young child was lost somewhere in a dreamworld, drifting between semi-consciousness and sleep, her experience a blur of partial reality and a nightmare she couldn’t begin to understand.

Lottie called for her mother only the once, shouting out the word, eyes tight shut, and then she began screeching, high-pitched, piercing, as the sedative effects of the drug gradually wore off. Heath placed the camera aside before rushing forward, grabbing Lottie’s right hand, dragging her arm through the steel bars, and plunging the needle of a prepared injection deep into her bicep, administrating the adult dose of the sedative drug to ensure rapid effectiveness. Heath slumped to the wooden floor, panting hard as Lottie rolled up in a tight ball, clutching her knees to her chest. He fought the almost overwhelming urge to harm her further. To act out his deviant, unreflective impulses to throw all semblances of self-control aside.

But he somehow succeeded in focusing on the long game, rather than grasp the glorious but all too short-lived pay-off immediate violence would bring. In time he planned to kill her. To inflict terrible suffering as he had on all those who’d died at his hands. But the time had not yet come. Like it or not, that pleasure would have to wait.

Heath suddenly jumped to his feet in one athletic bound, picking up the SLR and walking slowly towards the attic’s hatch, as his dead mother’s image came back into sharp focus, lingering close to the opening, unavoidable, obstructive, getting in his way.

‘Do you know how to use the darkroom, Henry? Come to that, do you even know where it is? It was your father’s private space, after all, his sanctuary. You never ventured down those grey concrete steps, not as a child, and neither did I, for that matter. Such things were forbidden, out of bounds to all but him.’

Heath’s smirk became a sneer. ‘It’s in the cellar, Mother. Where else would the steps lead? And, yes, I know how to use it.’ He thrust the camera towards her, holding it only inches from her non-existent face. ‘It’s all there online. I’ve done my research. I’ve had to. I can hardly send the film to a lab.’

‘No, quite so, for once I can appreciate your point of view.’

He clapped his hands in glee, hopping up and down on the spot. ‘They’ll be black and white photos, arty, creative, and large for maximum impact. A brilliant idea, don’t you think?’

She looked back at him with a scowl. ‘Are you up to it, Henry. Do you really know what you’re doing? Or is it all talk?’