‘Then I’ll bid you a good night. Don’t disappoint me.’

The receiver clicked back into place.

Alec returned his hands to the armchair’s leather. He had been displeased with the detective’s behaviour. The truth was, however, that he was just as dissatisfied with his own. Maybe when a man has survived for as long as he had, he derived some deluded sense of invincibility from his years. But that was no excuse. He had told Mr French and Ms Coogan too much. After a lifetime of silent suffering, perhaps he had hoped it would ease his burden to finally share his plight with another. On the contrary, it served only to add to his worriment.

How would they each react to what was coming? It was perfectly reasonable – expected even – for one of them to call for help, as Ms Quinn had done. On listening back to that phone call, he could tell that the poor girl was terrified. She had blurted out so much that even the emergency services operator disappeared within the week.

The rumour mill churned out its own fairy-tale ending that Alec knew to disbelieve. Those who worked with the call taker said that he had been planning a grand escape abroad. Thailand or Vietnam, or somewhere comparably muggy. Innocence and ignorance were so often indistinguishable.

Ms Coogan was aptly fearful. Not even the most gifted actor could mimic such candid, hopeless despair. She would speak of the creeper to no one. Mr French could, however, prove problematic for two reasons. Firstly, his hatred for Alec was undeniable, bridled only by greed. Secondly, the man’s scepticism was inconvincible. So familiar was he with Ireland’s superstitious offering that he disbelieved anything bordering on the extraordinary.

Luckily, Mr French’s narrow-mindedness would expedite his expiration. Whatever money he thought awaited him, the man wouldn’t live as far as Monday to receive it.

20

Grey concrete rolled under the headlights. The cul-de-sac was as lonesome as last time. A curtain shifted aside as Ben slowed the car to a stop. Same registration, same bizarre scratches on its paint, same two culprits, same reckless inconsideration for the lives of others. The rumour mill had creaked to life, marrying what they knew with what they didn’t, conceiving due cause for concern.

Chloe’s boots thundered upstairs, sending a tattoo of tremors through the house. Floorboards groaned and cried. Curtains were called on every pane. Somewhere, cups chimed in a hidden cupboard. Sounds were oblivious to the walls around them. A heavy step in an upstairs bedroom landed just as loudly in the sitting room below, leaving no creak unheard and no peace undisturbed. It was as though the old house was a nocturnal sentient waking for the night ahead, wiping the sleep from its windows and stretching its aching beams.