Lucy pushed it open – to be confronted by the ultimate garret room; a narrow attic space, its roof slanted as though it was located right under the eaves, and so much longer than it was broad that it was more like a corridor. A few boxes, thick with cobwebs and crammed with rusty old tools, stood along the left-hand wall. There was nothing else in there, aside from down at its far end, where the rocking chair she had been hearing sat with its back to her, facing another grimy window.

There was a figure in that chair.

Lucy waited for a breathless moment. She didn’t know who this possibly could be, but over the top of the chair’s backrest she could distinguish a pair of shoulders and a head. No hair was visible, because whoever it was, they were wearing a hoodie jacket and the hood was pulled up.

‘Hello,’ she said – in a voice so strained that she was ashamed of it. She cleared her throat and tried to sound sterner. ‘I’m a police officer. I believe there’s been an incident here.’

The figure didn’t move.

‘If you’re able to, I need you to leave this building,’ she said. ‘It’s become a crime scene.’

Still, the figure didn’t move.

‘Do you know anything about that?’

Again, nothing.

Feeling as if fire ants were scurrying all over her, she ventured forward with footsteps she never even heard despite the hollow floorboards that had amplified the sound of the rockers.

Even as she approached, the figure remained perfectly still.

Lucy couldn’t say more; her throat was constricted, her tongue filled her entire mouth. As she came up behind the chair, she saw that it was indeed a human figure. It had arms and legs, and was dressed in jeans and training shoes, both pairs very old and dirty. It also had gloves on, its hands crossed on its lap.

So motionless was the form that in normal circumstances she’d have sworn she was in the presence of a dead man, but the only smell in here was the stagnant air of a derelict building.

‘Can’t you hear me?’ she said, edging her way round to the front. ‘I told you, I’m a poli …’

The words died on her tongue.

What she was looking at was a department store mannequin, but with its face hacked and slashed to pieces. The implement that had been used for this was still embedded where the right eye had used to be: a pair of rusty old scissors.

As Lucy stood there, bewildered, the chair began to rock again, stiffly and heavily, back and forth, back and forth. But she only ran when it jerked wildly forward and its occupant threw itself bodily onto her.