I pushed past him and into the kitchen, where I poured myself a glass of water and drank it in one. I heard him walk into the room behind me.

‘Please, Mr Callendar.’ I leaned on the sink and tried to calm myself. I was so angry now I was sweating; I’d become inarticulate in my rage.

‘Danny.’

‘Please, Mr Callendar, leave my property. Now.’

‘I came to warn you, Rose. For your own sake.’

‘Yeah, I got that bit, thanks.’ I turned to face him. He’d laid his gun, a Glock, on the worktop. It lay there, black and silent. Vehemently I pushed down the fear rearing up inside; I’d be damned if I’d let him see it.

‘This is what Mr Kattan pays you to do, is it, the “hired help”?’ I stared at the gun and I felt hatred for Callendar’s sheer arrogance. ‘You must be very proud of yourself.’

‘Maybe.’ He shrugged again. ‘I know what you’re up to, by the way.’

‘Oh, really?’

‘I mean – I know who you are.’

We stared at each other for a moment. ‘And who am I?’

‘You’re a journalist, an award-winning one,’ he said indolently. ‘But there’s no story here, Rose Langton. Leave it alone.’

‘I was only going to interview him for the local paper,’ I protested.

‘But you work for the nationals, don’t you? The Guardian, The Times. He doesn’t know,’ he leaned against the worktop, lazily crossed his Converse trainers at the ankle, ‘not yet. But I do. Like I know you saw Maya today.’

‘I won’t let you intimidate me, you know,’ I said, but I was lying. I was already intimidated, gun or no gun. There was a quiet menace about him, the way he held himself, apparently so relaxed – all scruffy jeans and parka and messy hair, flecks of blond in his dark stubble – but it was all a front. I could sense the tension in him underneath the surface, like something pulled tight. Something about to snap.

‘You don’t understand what you’re messing with,’ he said quietly and before I could move he’d grabbed my arm, yanking me towards him. ‘You really don’t. Kattan’s playing with you. And he will turn nasty. You need to keep away.’

‘Get off me,’ I hissed. He was hurting me. My heart was beating so fast now I thought it might actually become audible, and I struggled hard, trying to free myself but he was holding my arm so tight and he wasn’t about to let go. I looked up at him, at his dark-fringed blue eyes and I was so near I could see the ring of black around the blue. Everything was flying around inside my head, banging off the sides of my poor brain.

‘Is that why you were following me?’ I whispered. ‘I saw you, you know.’