‘That’s good to have, although it’s not much use on its own. It’s hardly the crime of the year.’ Jamie realised this was one of Dodds’ favourite phrases. ‘Hold on to it and make sure you keep a record of everything, including conversations you have with the mail order companies. But I’d still advise you to hold fire for now. Sooner or later these people are going to get bored, I promise you.’

‘What did they say when you went down there to see them?’

‘To be honest, they didn’t say very much. We told them we’d asked you not to enter their garden uninvited again, and they thanked us. That was pretty much it.’

‘Were they both there? Lucy and Chris?’

‘Yes. But she did all the talking.’

‘I can believe that.’

When Kirsty and Jamie discussed the situation, which they did every evening, they found that without realising it they had begun to focus their anger and upset onto Lucy. She had become the arch villain, while Chris was just her sidekick, an acolyte who, despite being married to her, didn’t share her insanity. It was always her writing on the application forms; it was her who stood in the garden and shouted at Jamie, while Chris hid inside. Jamie wondered if it would be worth trying to talk to Chris alone, to see if he could reason with him, man to man.

‘No,’ said Kirsty, when he suggested this. ‘Stay away from them both. We might be wrong. Chris might be the driving force behind this. And the more I think about it, the more I blame him for what happened to Paul. If he hadn’t taken us karting…’

That had been one of the most sickening pieces of mail they had received: an invitation to join the National Go-Karting Association. Jamie had marched down to the basement flat and rammed it through their letter box, fighting the temptation to put a brick through their window. The letter had made Kirsty cry, and only a great effort of willpower stopped her from going down and throwing that brick through their window herself.

She hated them. She had never hated anyone before, not like this anyway. She realised it was unhealthy, especially if she was pregnant. It would do her no good to fill her body with hateful poisons, to let malice and spite drip into her bloodstream. She had to stay calm, relax, chill.

And she had to get off this fucking Tube train.

Finally it halted at her stop, and she pushed her way through the hot, closely-crammed bodies onto the platform, where she gulped down air like she had just crossed the desert and the air was fresh water.