She closed her eyes. She didn’t want to hear this. If there was no food she wanted him to leave. Then there was no chance of him doing what he’d done the night before.

‘Do you want to know why I had to eat it?’

Maggie shook her head.

‘Don’t be like that! It’s interesting!’

Maggie shuffled backwards on the mattress until her back was against the wall. She hugged her knees to her chest.

He folded his arms. ‘The police came. They were looking for you.’

She blinked, looking at him.

‘Don’t get your hopes up, though. They didn’t have a warrant, and they have no reason to suspect me, other than the fact they always suspect me. They don’t like me, you see. I let them have a look around so that they’d go away. I knew there was no chance they would find this place!’

He bounced up and down on his heels. ‘That’s when I ate the food. I’d made it for you just before they arrived. They saw it and I didn’t want them wondering who it was for. So while they were banging around looking in cupboards and under beds – as if I’d be so stupid as to hide anything valuable in such an obvious place – I ate it. As though it was mine all along.’

He shrugged.

‘And so no food until tomorrow.’

‘Why,’ Maggie said, in a whisper, ‘why do they not like you?’

He shook his head ruefully. ‘My wife,’ he said. ‘Ex-wife, that is, found some photographs I’d taken. She couldn’t understand that they were harmless and innocent and she made a big fuss, and then the police came and she told them – can you believe that? She told them – about the photos and I had to destroy them.’

‘What kind of photos?’

‘Nothing, really! Photos of people. Girls, mainly. On the way to and from school. She said it was disgusting that I took them, but she was wrong.’ He leaned forward, his eyes bright. ‘They were beautiful. Not obscene. Not disgusting. They were works of art. And they were harmless. The girls didn’t even know I’d taken them.’ He sighed. ‘But it worked out well. It was serendipitous. You know what that means? It comes from the Three Princes of Serendip and it means lucky. Fortuitous. I’ll tell you all about it some day. Anyway, it was serendipitous because it meant I had to re-start my collection and that meant I found you.’

Maggie was glad she hadn’t eaten. If she had, she would have thrown it up.