‘I told you,’ Stacey says. ‘You should be proud of Peter. He saw weakness in my son and took advantage of it. He did what he had evolutionarily adapted to do. He was an apex predator – a winner. Natural selection favours winners: it’s what survival of the fittest means. He was the one who made me see I couldn’t let Felix leave the cellar just because things were taking longer than we’d planned.’ She shakes her head in admiration. ‘I wish my son was more like him.’

‘He’s not a winner,’ I say. ‘He’s—’

I break off as her words finally sink in.

‘What do you mean, he was a winner?’ I say slowly. ‘Why do you keep saying was?’ Dread seeps like ice through my limbs. ‘Where is he, Stacey?’

‘He’s here,’ she says irritably.

‘Where?’

‘He shouldn’t have interfered,’ she says. ‘I had a plan. But Peter thought he was smarter than me. He thought he could do what he liked and it’d be too late for me to be able to do anything about it. He had no right. This was my plan. Felix was my husband.’

Fear coalesces in the pit of my stomach.

‘What have you done?’ I shout, lunging towards her. ‘Where is he, Stacey?’

The handcuff pulls me up short, almost dislocating my shoulder, but I yank against it anyway like a chained dog until the metal cuts deep into my flesh and blood flows warm and sticky over my wrist. ‘Where is he, Stacey? What have you done with my son?’

‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ Stacey says, exasperated, smacking her palm against the freezer. ‘Enough already. I told you, he’s right here.’

‘What d’you mean he’s—’

And then I get it.

‘Oh, dear Jesus. He’s inside.’

She laughs. ‘I did tell you he was here.’

A howling gale of grief and fury sweeps through me: I want to strangle the woman with my bare hands, I want to gouge out her eyes with my nails and force them down her throat.

It takes every ounce of self-control to hold my rage in check. There’s no point begging or pleading or threatening her: she’s a psychopath, incapable of fear or empathy. My only hope is to appeal to her self-interest: to her ego.

If there’s any hope left in a world without my son.

‘Is he dead?’ I ask calmly.

‘I’m not sure,’ she says, glancing down at the freezer and sounding genuinely curious. ‘He was alive when I put him in, but that was an hour ago.’