She took the stairs carefully, listening for a clue, any indication of which way she should turn. In the hall she paused again. They’d fallen into the habit of using the kitchen door to come and go, but they’d locked the front door, hadn’t they?

She couldn’t remember.

It was cold in the hallway, damp – and the light was dim. To her left, the living room door was shut. To her right, the door to the kitchen was open, and beyond it was the back door – which she had very definitely not locked when Chris and Maude left.

It might have been the wind, but she thought she could hear the front door shudder a little, as if someone was testing it.

She didn’t stop to think, if she did that she’d never move, and then . . . She took a breath and turned right – it was just half a dozen paces to her phone. She moved swiftly, purpose-fully, through the open door, then skidded suddenly as she lost first her footing, then her balance, her momentum causing her to fall heavily against the dining table, leaving her breath-less as she slammed her hands against the top of it, bracing herself.

Everything stopped; then she stood, slowly, tenderly, taking stock, her arms shaking. Lying on the floorboard was a scrap of rubber and foam, bright orange, missing a few of its sequins now, but familiar enough; she had slipped on one of Maude’s flip-flops. Where had it come from? How had any of them missed it?

She picked it up, and behind her, in the hall, the front door shuddered again. She hurried across the kitchen, snatching up her phone, turning and scanning the room.

Empty. Empty. Empty.

But still it didn’t feel empty.

‘Hello?’ she called out, still convinced there was someone in the house with her, someone just out of sight. ‘Maude? Is that you?’ She glanced down at her screen. There was no signal; there never was a bloody signal here. She grabbed the door handle and pulled, but it was stuck – locked – using both hands now, locked after all, locked in – and as she struggled with it she lost her grip on the phone and it smashed face down onto the flagstone floor.

Leave it, Nell thought, just leave it.

She tried the door again – turning the key back and forth, she felt the mechanism click into place, so surely it couldn’t be, couldn’t be – and after pulling frantically at the handle for another few seconds, she managed to unstick it, tug it free, staggering back a little as she did so.

She righted herself and all but walked straight into Gina Verrill.

The thought occurred to Nell that Gina had been pulling at the door too, that the pair of them had been engaged in some ridiculous tug of war, and she had the terrible urge to laugh.

‘Are you all right?’ Gina was peering past her.