‘Shh.’ A sound like a slow gas leak. I fall silent but my lip quakes. ‘I know I can take whatever I want,’ he says, showing me my car keys. ‘I know that already.’ I turn back to Cain, who is still prone, facing away. My phone is in the car, why didn’t I grab it? ‘He’s not waking up any time soon,’ he says. ‘Downstairs, let’s go.’

Impossibly, despite the numbness, my legs respond and I walk past him, my body a struck bell. ‘You’ve been watching me.’ Even my voice shakes. ‘It’s been you.’

‘We are all voyeurs, Lina. You included.’

Me? What does he mean? I take the stairs, gripping the handrail tight.

‘Up all night, searching your mother’s name. Trying to know everything about her. You’re just as obsessed as the rest of us.’

I grit my teeth, biting back against the rising anger. It’s not due to some protective instinct, but rather the simple fact that this man, this monster, possesses my most private secrets. ‘How do you know about that?’ My head is swimming.

He doesn’t answer my question. ‘Over there by the fireplace. Sit.’

‘No, please just –’ The gun barrel comes up to my face again. ‘Okay, okay. I’m sorry.’ I sit down and see the handcuffs. One end is closed around the foot of the fireplace, the other is sitting loose, open on the tiles.

‘Go on, you know what to do.’

‘No,’ I say, tears coming. ‘No, please don’t do this.’

‘Put it on!’ His voice rumbles. I sit down, reach for the handcuff and close it around my wrist. ‘Tighter.’

I squeeze it until the cold steel is pressing against my skin all the way around.

He sits on the coffee table near me. Places the shotgun down.

‘You’re a paramedic, right?’

I just stare at that mask, those green eyes.

‘You’re Daniel, aren’t you?’

‘Who I am is not important right now.’

‘What did you do to my husband?’

‘He’s just having a sleep, that’s all.’

It comes down on me like a thunderclap. This has been planned. Daniel, or whoever this is, has gone to a lot of trouble. ‘What did you do to him?’

‘I gave him something, ketamine.’

‘How much?’

‘I don’t know. I put a sedative in the wine, I assume he drank it all. Then I gave him ketamine while you were in the shower.’

Shit. Cain is in trouble. He’s mixed anaesthetics. Ketamine overdose is very rare and unlikely but in high enough doses he could choke on his own vomit, or the ketamine could interact with the other sedative and suppress his breathing. ‘Please let me help him.’