Something shifts. She senses it immediately – she’s been heard. Whoever is down there heard her. She thinks back to the figure she saw in the doorway of their bedroom earlier in the week. A woman. It could have been a man. She’s not sure. But she saw someone.

The silence changes quality, and the knowledge of it sends a shiver all over her body.

‘Hello? Aurelia, you OK?’

Tom’s on the line. She presses the phone to her ear. ‘I’m in the basement,’ she says in a low voice.

‘Why are you in the basement?’

‘I’m just at the door. I think someone’s down here.’

‘Someone?’

‘I heard … noises.’

‘Shut the basement door right now and go back inside the house. I’m calling the police.’

She draws a breath. ‘Tom, the police are miles away. By the time they get here Basecamp will be built and decorated.’

She holds the phone away from her ear and listens hard to the darkness. Her instincts tell her that whatever was down there has gone. She frowns. How could it be gone? But her heartbeat slows and the tightness in her throat eases, and she tells Tom to stay on the line as she investigates. She uses the torch on her phone to illuminate her path, then finds a cord at the bottom step which she pulls, flooding the place with light.

‘Anything there?’ Tom asks on speaker phone.

She looks around. No one is here. Still, she studies the space as though a trace of whoever was here might appear. It’s a smaller room than she expected, and no sign of any external entrance. A solid stone room with no windows or exits of any kind. Dusty spider webs everywhere. A sour, chemical smell.

‘I’m checking the cupboards, Tom,’ she says loudly, to alert Tom and any intruders that she’s doing so. But they reveal nothing, and suddenly she feels stupid. The sound is gone and no one is here. How peculiar.

‘Are you sure?’ Tom says, worried now. ‘Those old houses can have hidden doors. Check carefully.’

‘I can see an air vent,’ she says, glancing at a small square opening high up in a corner. ‘Perhaps that caused the sound.’

‘You think so?’ Tom asks. ‘I guess that would explain it.’

Her instincts tell her no, this wasn’t the source of the sound, but they also say she’s no longer in any danger, and so she moves towards the benches to uncover whatever is hidden beneath the old beige tarpaulin, turning her head as she shakes off a fur of dust.

‘Tom,’ she says with a laugh. ‘You will never guess what the basement is.’

‘A crypt?’

‘It’s a darkroom!’