OK, when they had moved in they had thrown a party, but they had invited all their neighbours so it wasn’t their fault Chris and Lucy had chosen not to come. And when they apologised afterwards they were told by Lucy that Chris had slept right through it! The very first lie she had told them.

What else had they done? Had sex – but no more noisily or frequently than any other couple their age. Played music – but certainly not at excessive volumes. How could any of that lead Chris and Lucy to do such terrible things? Especially when sound hardly carried between the flats.

The truth was, they had done practically nothing to provoke them, but they had still invoked their wrath. Jamie had lain awake at night thinking about it, and it all came back to one simple fact: Lucy and Chris were evil. They enjoyed causing misery; they revelled in other people’s pain. And they were prepared to put themselves to great trouble and effort to cause that pain. If it wasn’t happening to him, Jamie wouldn’t believe it possible. But it was true. It was really happening – and it was happening to him and Kirsty. Life wasn’t meant to be like that. It wasn’t fucking fair.

All this, caused by two apparently normal people. They weren’t monsters. They weren’t vampires or demons or phantoms. They were just people. Actually, Jamie thought, that made sense. There was Brian upstairs writing his horror stories for kids: supernatural tales in which werewolves and witches terrorised children. He shouldn’t be writing about monsters or magic, though, not if he wanted to teach children a lesson about life. He should be writing about people like Lucy and Chris.

He climbed into his car and sat back. He fished out his wallet and looked at the phone number again. What was the name? Charlie. He didn’t yet know what story he would make up to explain how he had got the number, but he would think of something.

He put his wallet away and drove home.

He spent the afternoon sitting outside a small cafe on the high street. Driving away from the office, he had been overcome by an overwhelming urge for a cigarette. He hadn’t had one since he was at college. He hated smoking. The smell and the taste of it made him feel sick. But here, now, he felt the most awful craving: his bloodstream calling out for nicotine. His fingers and lips needed something to keep themselves occupied, and nothing else would do.

He watched himself unwrap the white and gold cigarette packet he’d just bought in a newsagents with a sense of horrified, guilty wonder.