She slips as she turns to leave, both hands needed to break her fall. There is no pain, though, only rising confusion. And a seed of dread, which propels her quickly from the room. A single step into the living room is all she manages before halting so abruptly it’s as if she’s walked into an invisible door. She sags against the doorframe, heart thudding so hard it makes her head tremble. The sounds she heard: not the TV at all.

The room is dark, but she can see that the patio door is halfway open, rain shooting in to soak the carpet, fast and loud, and that’s all she can see.

Because there’s no Nick, no Josie.

But she drags her eyes away from it. She stumbles across the room and peeks behind the floor-to-ceiling room divider, but she already knew the dining room would be as black and lifeless as the rest of the house.

No Nick. No Josie.

Now she cannot avoid that patio door. She rushes outside, into the stinging rain, into the black. No Nick, no Josie. She calls their names, both of them, but of course there’s no answer. The world is black, and the rain distorts everything like a sheet of frosted glass, but she can clearly see that there’s…

No Nick. No Josie.

Beyond the high back hedge her eyes latch onto a fragment of street, and cars, and houses belonging to neighbours floating in tranquil dreams. She can see these things because the back gate is wide open. It’s never left open, which means it’s as good as a sign. Big and bright and neon and undeniable: gone.

A light is on in a house across the garden and the street beyond, and she thinks she sees someone at the bedroom window, and then the pain in her throat makes her realise she’s been screaming. She turns, meaning to get back, get to her phone, get the police, but she trips on the half-moon concrete step. One bracing hand thuds onto the step with a squelch, not a splash. And when her hand comes away, her skin is greasy, and the moonlight catches it, and she knows she’s looking at a palm coated in blood.

Part One

One

‘Hello, police emergency.’

‘Please, my daughter. She’s been taken. My husband and my daughter.’

‘Repeat that, please. Your daughter and husband, did you say? What’s your name?’

‘Anna Carter. It’s my daughter, she’s gone from the house. And my husband. They must have been taken.’

‘What do you mean by taken?’

‘Yes, taken. From my house. The door, the patio door, it’s wide open. They’re gone. They’ve been kidnapped or something. They must have. They wouldn’t go out. There’s blood on the step.’

‘What makes you think your daughter and husband have been kidnapped?’