“Leave the windows shut,” said Mum. “The skylight too. Don’t draw them. Keep the lights on, but hidden. Remember?”

“Yeah.” Keira grinned again, reciting:

“Board your window, keep on the light,

When the Tatterskin walks at night.

Hush and be still, make never a cry,

And pray the Tatterskin passes by.”

“That’s a girl,” said Liz, and Keira grinned wider still. She was scared – Jess could practically smell it – but happy too. Excited. Because all Liz’s stories were true and no one else’s rules mattered now, only theirs.

Paul sat at the kitchen table, smoking and proper shaken up. He hadn’t believed, not really, not till now. Whatever he’d seen at the Bell, all he’d really cared about was the chance to get hold of Charlotte Famuyiwa.

Jess knew she’d pay for him losing his chance. And when she did, Mum’d blame Ellie Cheetham for coming down and messing things up, or Charlotte for getting Paul all turned-on, but any time Jess might have believed that was long gone.

I hate you all, she said silently, then hugged Baby Joel close. Not you, sweetheart. Maybe not Dom, either. But the rest? Mum and Paul, Keira and Frank? Fuck them all. Funny: with everything else being torn apart, this should’ve been the time she clung to her family above all. But if the alternative was spending the rest of her life alone with them, she’d rather be dead – rather find Ellie Cheetham, who’d always played fair with her, and Dr Emmanuel, who’d always been kind, who might have been the only one who ever had been, and die with them. If they weren’t already dead.

She wasn’t that brave, though. Go out in that night, with her baby? Being a Harper wouldn’t keep her safe: They hadn’t spared Tony, had they?

There was a chance, though, wasn’t there? A chance tonight wouldn’t be the end for everyone else. Mum’d said there’d be another day after this; then tomorrow night, the Dance. So maybe They wouldn’t get everybody; They might even spare a few for now, like cats tormenting mice. And if there were people left in Barsall tomorrow, Ellie Cheetham would be one of them. And if so…

...if so, Jess would have something for her.

Because Jess had an idea.

Paul puffed on his fag, fingers trembling. Keira went up the stairs, Frank beside her. Mum sat down and began smoking too, not looking at Paul. Dom huddled in a corner, arms around his dogs, muttering to them. He’d be happy there, and feel safe. So that just left Jess.