By the time Aslan took the tray of tea outside, he’d decided that he’d just carry on as normal. He’d lead the guests to the Meditation Space. Just as normal. He’d lock the room down. Just as normal. He’d then share a cup of tea with them all and start the Healing. Just as normal.

‘Good morning!’ Aslan called out to get the attention of the five guests down on the beach. They all turned and looked up at him. A few of them even waved.

Yes, he decided to himself, it was all going to be just fine.

It was half an hour later when the screaming started.

At the time, most of the hotel guests were finishing their breakfast in the outdoor dining area, or were already wearing white cotton robes and heading off to their first treatment of the day. As for Rianka Kennedy, Aslan’s wife, she was sitting out on the hotel’s verandah, a wicker basket of sewing at her feet as she darned one of her husband’s socks.

The scream seemed to be coming from one of the treatment rooms that sat in the middle of The Retreat’s largest lawn: a timber and paper Japanese tea house that Aslan and Rianka had christened the ‘Meditation Space’.

When a second scream joined the first, Rianka found herself running across the grass towards the Meditation Space. It was a good hundred yards away and, when Rianka had covered about half the distance, Dominic De Vere, The Retreat’s tanned and taut handyman, appeared as if by magic from around the side of a clump of bougainvillea. As usual he was wearing only cut-off jeans, flip-flops and a utility belt full of various tools.

‘What’s that racket?’ he asked somewhat redundantly as Rianka flashed past him. After a moment, he turned and trotted after her.

Rianka got to the door of the Meditation Space, and, as there was no handle on the outside of it, tried to jam her fingers into the gap between the door and the frame with no success. It wouldn’t budge—it was locked from the inside.

‘What’s going on?’ she called out over the sound of screams.

Dominic finally flapped over on his flip-flops and caught up with Rianka, if not the situation.

‘What’s happening?’ he asked.

‘Dominic, get that door open!’

‘I can’t. There’s no door handle.’

‘Use your knife! Just cut through the paper!’

‘Oh! Of course!’

Dominic grabbed the Stanley knife from the pouch at his belt and clicked the triangular blade out. He was about to slash through the paper of the tea house’s wall when they both saw it: a bloody hand pressed up against the inside.

They then heard a man’s voice, thick with fear: ‘Help!’

And then a different female voice: ‘Oh god! Oh god!’