The first few times he’d mentioned her weight – comments like Good job I like something to hold on to in bed or Just like me to end up with a salad dodger for a girlfriend – she’d wondered whether she was being over-sensitive, but after tonight she knew she wasn’t.

They’d moved in together a month before, and earlier at the pub, Carol, the fiancée of his best friend, Paul, had asked how it was going.

Lovely, Carrie had replied, and smiled at Mike. We’re like an old married couple!

Yeah, Mike said. It’s great. Only thing is Carrie’s eaten all my pies. I had a year’s worth of Fray Bentos in, and she’s scoffed the lot.

His friends – the male ones – laughed, of course they did, while their girlfriends gave her little looks of sympathy. She’d felt herself blush, and headed for the loos. As she left the table, she heard Mike tut, and say Bloody hell, there she goes. Can’t take a joke.

Well, it wasn’t a joke, and she wasn’t taking it any more.

You do have feelings, and you hurt mine. Anyway, this isn’t about me or my feelings, it’s about what you did. There’s a name for it, Mike.

Yeah, he said. Joking.

No, she replied. Fat-shaming.

He burst into a fit of laughter.

Give over, he said. Fat-shaming. What a load of bollocks.

It’s not, she said. It’s real. And it’s what you’re doing.

He shrugged. If you say so. And you are a bit porky, Carrie. But like I said. I’m a fan of the larger lady.

That was when she left. She could have called a cab but she didn’t want to stay there a second longer. She didn’t care about serial killers. It wouldn’t happen to her.

And if it did it would serve him right.

She turned into her parents’ street and relaxed. They lived at the end in a large house. All the houses on the street were set back from the road at the end of long driveways. She walked past Neil and Shannon’s place – they had moved in a few years back and she had babysat their kids – and then Mr Morrison’s, a widower she had known all her life.

There was one more before her parents’. It had been bought by a lawyer from London a month or so ago, but she and her family were yet to move in. It was an island of darkness in the light.

She hurried past the driveway. As she did, she glanced up at the house.

There was a car parked a yard inside the drive. It was dark-coloured and the lights were off, but she knew instantly that it shouldn’t have been there.

And nor should the hooded figure who stepped into the street from the shadows where the driveway ended.