‘Like writer to writer,’ Dudek said. ‘It is sort of poetic.’

‘Yes,’ Wynne said. ‘Exactly, like writer to writer. I think it’s time to pay Carl Jameson a visit.’

Annabelle

The first thing she thought when she woke up was that she had slept on her shoulder in an uncomfortable way. It ached with a dull throb.

The second was that she had a terrible hangover. Her mouth was dry, and she had a piercing headache. Oddly, her mouth hurt, as though it had been bruised.

What did I do last night? she thought. Did we go out?

She stretched out her left hand to reach for Matt. She needed a hug, and, if she could persuade him, a glass of water and an aspirin.

He was not there. There was nothing there. Her hand flopped into space, which was weird, because she always slept on the right side of the bed.

And then she remembered.

The car. The kids. The reason her shoulder hurt. The reason her mouth hurt.

She opened her eyes.

The room was totally dark. She lay there, waiting for her eyes to adjust, but there was nothing to adjust to. She twisted on the bed, feeling behind her with her good arm. There was a wall. She ran her hand over it, hoping for a switch. There was nothing.

Then she froze.

Was she alone in here? Was there someone with her, sitting beside the bed, watching? She pictured the figure in the hoodie, here, now, arms folded, watching …

She listened. For a second she thought she heard someone breathing, thought she could detect the sound of a heart beating.

She realized it was hers.

‘Hello?’ she said. ‘Is anyone here?’

There was no answer.

She moved her legs to the right, feeling for the end of the mattress. It was a double bed, at least. She shuffled across it, and sat on the right-hand edge, her left hand in front of her. She inched forward until she felt a wall, then gradually raised her hand until she was standing and her arm was above her head. She reached as far as she could, but did not get to the ceiling.

A high ceiling, then. Probably not a basement.

She swept her hand down in an arc, keeping it on the wall. When it was almost at ninety degrees to her body, her fingertips brushed something. It felt like a raised piece of wood; a window frame, she assumed.

She felt around the edge, then into the middle. Her fingers did not touch glass or the fabric of a curtain. Rather, there was a hard, plastic cover. A shutter, maybe.

She inched along the window, her left hand – the right was uselessly strapped to her body by the sling – running along the bottom of the window frame.

And then the window frame ran out, and, at the far side of the window, her fingers met a rod, dangling against the wall.