She hears voices and glances across to see a well-dressed man and a willowy woman in heels exiting and locking number forty-three. Archer wonders if they are the new owners Grandad mentioned.

‘Good evening,’ says the man.

‘Good evening,’ replies Archer.

Their footsteps fade into the night as Archer searches for her keys outside number fifty-two. She unlocks the front door, steps inside and listens for the sound of the television, or a hello, but all she hears is the peaceful snoring of Grandad coming from his bedroom at the top of the stairs.

She removes her backpack and peels off her coat in the warm narrow hallway with the familiar smell of sandalwood and the eternally lit battery candle with an image of the Virgin flickering on the wall between two photographs. One is of her grandma, a dignified, handsome woman of Algerian Jewish descent, and the other is of Archer’s father, DCI Samuel David Archer. Her heart swells with love and loss and she whispers goodnight to them before turning in.

She is tired, her eyes sore from staring at computers and the overwearing of contact lenses. She sets the alarm of the digital clock on the bedside table. In this small bedroom that was her father’s, and later hers, she climbs into the bed and tries to sleep but the events of her first day and this artist-cum-killer turn over in her mind like a storm of jigsaw pieces.

Sleep isn’t an option yet.

She reaches across for her glasses on the bedside table, takes out her laptop and googles the suspect. His website is a single page of streaming video links from YouTube containing short movies shot in Super 8 film format, just like the short of Billy Perrin in Flanders Art Gallery. One video, titled Hanged Man, depicts a man hanging from a tree upside down by one leg. He is wearing a mask, which has an ‘@’ symbol daubed in red over the right eye. His hands and other leg seem to be tied together. There is a pit bull tugging angrily at his mask and he is shaking as if trying to break free from the dog and his bonds. There are other films like recorded CCTV footage from inside people’s homes. She clicks on one called Last Supper, which shows a broad man with short hair sitting alone in his kitchen, eating his dinner. The same mask as before appears like a ghost in the window behind him and watches him before disappearing. In another titled The Reader, a woman is sitting on a sofa reading a book under the dim light of a lamp. She startles suddenly and looks across the room. Closing her book, she slowly stands and then seems to speak as if asking who is there. In the shadowy room behind her, Archer sees a figure moving forward and switching off the lamp.

Archer feels her skin crawling.