‘You’re not here to talk to me about my daughter,’ Fenny said. ‘Now get the fuck out of my flat, you friggin’ weirdo, or I’m calling the police.’

The man turned his attention to the speaker that dwarfed Fenny’s room, switching it on and scrolling down the iPod that allowed Fenny to randomise music for hours at a time without bothering with it.

‘You like opera, right? I’ve heard it through your door before,’ he said. ‘A couple of times it’s been so loud that I could hear it from the street.’ He hit a button and violins filled the air in a dramatic minor key. ‘It’s the one thing about you that impressed me. An appreciation for the arts is what separates us from the beasts.’

As Fenny screamed, the man simply turned the music louder. From the floor below came the retaliatory strains of an American rapper.

‘Let’s take this into the bathroom, Mrs Hawksmith, as that’s your preferred location.’

He led her by the handcuff towards the bathroom and that was enough to break her from her shocked inaction. Fenny made a dash for her front door, ripping the handcuff through his fingers and sprinting. He’d been waiting for her to make a move. That was what she realised as she crashed to the floor, courtesy of him hooking an outstretched ankle between her legs and watching calmly as she greeted the carpet with her jaw.

‘Fucker,’ Fenny murmured.

He pulled her back up by her hair and tutted.

‘That’s right. Now you want to live. Now you’ve decided to stop being an ungrateful, whining little bitch and protect what you have. Only it’s mine. You wanted to give it away and fortunately for you, I’m the one person who’ll value that gift.’

‘I never wanted to die,’ Fenny shrieked. ‘Not really. It was depression. I didn’t know how to cope with it then, but I learned at the hospital. They helped me. Who are you? You’re not from a charity. Who told you about me?’

‘What do you think your poor dead husband would make of it? He contracted a terrible, inescapable disease and lost his life to it unwillingly. Then you decided to go and throw yours away, with no consideration at all for the beauty of it, for the power humans harness within their bodies. You treated your own life as disposable after his was stolen from him. You know what I think, Mrs Hawksmith? I think your husband would decide that you’d forfeited your right to live.’

He drew a gun from inside his jacket. Fenny had never seen a real gun before. It was smaller than she’d imagined but it unleashed evil into the atmosphere. Its very presence seeped poison.

‘Take off your clothes,’ the man ordered, ‘and get into the bath.’