The cottage was dark, which was odd as the light was fading. There was a gate at the side and he could see the lake about fifty yards away. On the far side the high screes loomed over the water, their reflections giving the lake the appearance of a bottomless black hole.

He shuddered. There was a stark beauty here, but this was a cold and eerie place. He pulled his jacket tight around himself.

The gravel crunched under his feet as he walked to the front door. No possibility of a surprise entrance, then. He knocked on the door and held his breath. He wondered what he was going to find, and what he was going to do. The police had said she was dangerous, but at the end of the day it was Alice – or Brenda – and she was unlikely to be able to overpower him, never mind both him and Tom together.

All he wanted to do was tell Tom what was happening, tell him Alice was not who she said she was, and then make sure he was safe. She wouldn’t be expecting him, so it was likely that things were as they had been for years – there was no reason for her to have chosen today to do anything sinister.

But still. The police had said she was dangerous. His hackles rose.

He sensed there was something not right here, and he had to be careful.

He knocked again, but there was no answer. He tried the door handle, a large iron circle, and it turned with a creak. The door opened, and he stepped inside.

It was cool and quiet. There was a smell of ash, as if there’d been a fire in the grate recently. He listened for any noise – footsteps, voices, television.

Nothing. The house felt deserted. He looked out of the window at the drive. Alice’s car was there.

‘Hello?’ he called, softly. ‘Tom? Alice?’

He was in a living room, dark beams lowering the ceiling. Through the living room were the stairs; past those was a dining room, and then a kitchen. Outside he could see a terrace with four seats around a table.

He heard a noise behind him and spun around. Alice was standing in the doorway to the dining room. She was staring at him, her eyes dark, emotionless pits.

Then she smiled.

‘Roland,’ she said. ‘What a pleasant surprise.’

Alice

What the fuck was he doing here?

How did he even have the address? Tom – the fucking idiot – must have told him for some reason. And now he was here. But why? What could he want?

She didn’t know, but it didn’t really matter. He was going to have to die, one way or another.