‘Janet, I’m Lance Proudfoot. I appreciate you don’t know me, but I was worried about you,’ he said, feeling ridiculous, intrusive, like a kid caught peeping into a bedroom window. ‘I just wanted to make sure you were okay. I saw a man come into the flats earlier and … you know what? Don’t worry about it. I shouldn’t have bothered you.’

The door opened halfway. Janet stood smiling at him. He felt relieved immediately. She was fine. It had all been in his head. The wave of relief was quickly flooded with a sense of terrible embarrassment. She was within her rights to consider him some sort of gruesome stalker. He’d be lucky if she didn’t call the police as soon as he left. Only, she wasn’t looking annoyed at all. She was grinning, which wasn’t right at all. She didn’t know him. In fact, her reasoning for opening the door at all suddenly felt … he struggled to find the word.

‘I’m fine,’ she said brightly, her eyes twitching towards the end of the corridor from which he’d come. Twice, three times. He wasn’t imagining it. ‘It was nice of you to check on me, but you should probably go.’

Wrong. That was the word. It was that simple. She didn’t know him, should never have opened up. Only now she was trying to get rid of him, but she wasn’t saying it.

‘I didn’t mean to disturb you …’

‘I was just about to go to bed, so you should really go now,’ she said, her throat as taut as a stringed instrument in spite of the radiance of her smile.

Lance took a half step to the side to get a better view inside her flat.

‘Janet, if something’s wrong I can call the police,’ Lance said quietly.

The tip of a gun – just the tip, but Lance had seen enough of them to know what he was seeing – was aimed at him from behind Janet’s shoulder. He couldn’t see the face of the person holding it, but he already knew it was the man he’d seen worming his way inside the flats earlier. Janet’s face fell. Her adorable attempt to save Lance from getting involved in whatever drama was unfolding inside her flat had failed.

‘Inside, now,’ the male ordered him.

‘I don’t think so,’ Lance said. There were benefits to getting older and one of them was that fear, while in no way diminished, was often accompanied by a healthy dose of belligerence. ‘I think you’ll just have to shoot me in this corridor. I’m guessing the police would be here within a couple of minutes. The neighbours won’t want their TV time ruined by gunshots.’

The gun moved fluidly to press into Janet’s right temple.