‘No!’ She rolled over, sat up, and grabbed his arms. ‘What about the recording they made of us making love? Did they have the right to do that? And all the junk mail and hoaxes. That was all in our imagination, was it? The rats left outside the front door – I bet that was them. And what about the word written in the dust on your computer screen?’

Jamie rubbed his oily hands together. ‘I meant to ask you about that. Why did you wipe it off? I wanted to show it to that policeman, and it had gone. I looked really stupid.’

‘But I didn’t wipe it off.’

‘Are you sure?’

He breathed in sharply. ‘Maybe I imagined it, then. Maybe it was a hallucination.’

‘But I saw it too.’

‘Maybe we both imagined it.’

‘Jamie, you’re mad.’

‘That’s what I’m afraid of.’

She slapped his face. The crack of her palm against his cheek resounded through the bedroom, bouncing off the walls, echoing in the stunned silence.

He stared at her.

‘Jamie, I’m sorry.’ She wrapped her arms around him, pulled his face into the space where her neck and shoulder met. ‘You mustn’t say things like that, OK? It isn’t in your imagination. It’s them. Lucy and Chris. They’re doing it all. And that’s why we need to get away from here. I’ve decided, Jamie, we should move.’

He struggled out of her grasp.

‘No! We’re not moving.’

‘But Jamie, we can’t bring a child up here. Not with those people downstairs.’

‘No. I won’t give in.’ He jumped off the bed and began to stamp on the floor. He shouted, ‘I won’t give in! I won’t give in!’ And the tears came, flooding out of him, pouring forth, months of pent-up frustration. It had been a day for catharsis. The laughter earlier. Now the tears. He shuddered as he sobbed, and Kirsty held him, stroking his hair as he drenched her with his tears.

‘I won’t give in,’ he whispered.

She held him, and he could feel her chin on his shoulder. ‘OK, for your sake, I’ll give it one more chance.’

Chapter Twenty-two

Twenty-two