Then: She’s going to fall so fucking far.

Clings to the rusted metal, teeth chattering like hooves on cobbles. Holds himself tight, refusing to let the cold reach his bones. He’s endured worse than this. Far worse.

Feels himself rise and fall, his body eddying, up and down, down and up, as if dancing with the water.

Stares through the infra-red scope at the soul he has come to take.

The window frame makes her a portrait: a slender Venus: domed breasts; elegant neck; gently splayed fingers resting on the loveliness of her soft, warm stomach. He is not a man of carnal desires but he identifies the slow, hungry warmth that spreads through his lower reaches as something akin to arousal. He wonders whether it is relevant. He’s heard that she has certain gifts; a talent with herbs; a way with wild animals; an ability to soothe.

Perhaps, he thinks. Perhaps this is an enchantment. Perhaps you are bewitched. Her people – her clan. Touched by the angels, blessed with the sight …

She retreats from the window. Is replaced by the big man. Broad shoulders, red hair, sad eyes. He’s formidable, in the way that a cow can sometimes become a bull when its calves are threatened. He would rather not have to face him, if it can be helped. To do so would be to spoil the marvellous things he has planned.

He leans back, both hands clutching the green metal channel marker, the sea canoe tied to his foot by a length of cord. Looks up and around him. Raises the scope to his eye again and stares at the moon as if trying to read an inscription on it.

Above, the dark air above the Humber estuary becomes a kaleidoscope of shifting, shimmering shades. The clouds take upon the allusion of playful horses: all dapple-grey rumps and coiled tails, their muscular flesh scored with palette knife scratches. The darkness behind insinuates infinite colour: dried specks of sugary white picking out unfathomable constellations amid the spilled diesel and glistening coal of the night sky.

He rolls onto his stomach. Stares again at the little row of fishermen’s cottages; twee and saccharine in their picture-postcard sameness. Listens to the sound of a car engine coughing into life. Hears the swish of a lorry rumbling on the bridge overhead. Feels the slap of icy black water against his skin.

He takes a breath. Pushes it out and takes another. Rapid, shallow breaths now, followed by a deep, final gulp.

Slips into the water like a seal from an ice-flow. Surfaces twenty metres away. Makes for the shore in long, smooth, powerful strokes, dragging the cumbersome little craft behind him. He’d like to climb aboard and paddle to shore but to do so would risk drawing attention. Half submerged beneath the waves, he could easily be dismissed as an errant log or some scrap of discarded cargo. And so he swims. Kicks against the suck and pull of the currents. Tastes the salt and oil and brackish foulness of the shallows as his feet strike muddy earth.