‘The articles said she was leaving her parents’ house, which…’ A pause. He turns slowly, raising his arms. ‘… Is this place, right?’

‘Stop it.’

‘So what happened? Because the way it was written about in the news article I read from all those years ago it sounded like the police weren’t sure if she deliberately drove through the barrier or if it was an accident. Her blood alcohol was almost zero point two, enough booze to bring down a rhino and yet she drove. So it begs the question, did she do it on purpose? Did you push her over the edge?’

I don’t respond. I sit balled up, slowly shaking my head. I’ve read the same articles. I was young, but I remember it all so clearly. I was in this room when the fight happened. When she turned up to take me away and Grandpa sent her packing. If I’d gone, would we both have died? Or would she have driven away slowly, carefully?

‘Oh, Lina,’ he says. ‘Don’t cry. It’s not your fault. You can never know what might have happened, what someone was thinking. What secrets they keep. It makes sense to me now though. Your behaviour.’

‘Please stop. Just let us go.’

‘I think we’d better get on with the action: Give. The people. What they want.’

‘What are you saying?’

‘Let me show you,’ he says. He holds the phone out towards me again. I look at the screen. This time it’s not the room in that WeStay. It’s… our room, our room here. In the corner is that symbol again, the shape of a house with an eye at the centre. ‘We’re putting on a bit of a show,’ he says. ‘Smile for the viewers. Almost three hundred people watching this right now.’

‘What is this?’ I say, turning, looking up towards the corners of the room.

‘This is Peephole,’ he says. Then he stands again, and goes to the kitchen. Drawers slide open until he finds what he is looking for. ‘Ladies and gentleman,’ he says, his arms wide, as he slowly turns. ‘The main event is about to begin.’ Now the mask makes sense. People are watching this. He’s protecting his identity. He thinks he will get away with it. My eyes fix on what he is holding in his hands.

In his right is a steel, in his left is the Japanese chef’s knife we got as a wedding present. He starts sharpening the knife.

‘His name is Daniel Moore,’ I scream. ‘Please call the police, our address is –’

‘They can’t hear you,’ he says. ‘No one is coming to save you, Lina!’ Lightning cracks the sky open.

He climbs the steps once more, leaving the shotgun on the couch. I can hear the shhhiiivd-shhhiiivd of the knife sliding up the steel.