‘Your notes on him. Anything to help me understand,’ he says. ‘This is the story so far. A woman falls in love with a damaged man. They have two children. The damaged man falls in love with his psychologist. She screws him, then encourages him to commit suicide. The woman lives a lonely sad existence with all the money in the world until she develops a drug dependence. She spends half her fortune on prescription medication, then one day her son finds her lifeless body.’ He opens the window now, then goes to the corner of the room. The smell grows stronger. Then I see it, the can. ‘Do you know who I blame, Margot? Not my dad, not my mum. The reason I am so fucked up is because of you.’

‘I cared for him,’ I say. ‘I did. And I can help you.’

‘Oh, you can help me.’ He claws the air with his index and middle finger, making quotation marks. ‘Just like you helped him? You’re a pretty shitty psychologist if you call that help.’

‘Please Cormac, we had a deal. I told the truth, I answered your questions. Now let me go.’

‘This is going to kill July, really. She’ll never recover.’

‘You said if I told the truth, you wouldn’t kill me.’

‘You may not have lied,’ he says. ‘But I did.’

Then he circles me, rushing quickly about the room, emptying the can. The space fills with the smell of kerosene.

‘You’ve got a choice,’ he says. ‘You can jump and kill yourself, or you can burn to death. Up to you.’ He trails the fuel to the door and I hear it spilling as he walks down the stairs.

My heart seems to be the only thing moving. It’s punching my chest. Around me is stillness like a drawn breath. Then I hear it, the sound of a match striking and the hiss of a flame.

Chapter Thirty-One

THIRTY-ONE

A DOOR SLAMMING. The car starting. I’m all alone. I scream but I know there is no one for miles. I’ll be long dead in the charred remains of a house before anyone can reach me.

I scream again and this time, over the growing crackle of the flames in the stairway, I hear something. A tiny voice, screaming in my pocket. The phone. The call is still on the line. I twist, carefully but still the chair rocks beneath me. I can see the flames in the doorway now, climbing slowly up the stairs. It crackles and hisses, moving in a line that spreads like ink and all the shadows grow and lean as the flames dance. It’s coming. I can’t get my bound hands to my pocket but someone is there, someone is listening.