She looked up at him. ‘Well, Mr Danes, we may just have to do something about that.’

‘Sort of now?’ he suggested.

‘Now is very good.’

He followed his wife upstairs to the bedroom. They were barely through the door before she started tearing at his clothes. Like a woman possessed, he thought, tearing back at hers. Possessed in a very nice way.

After, as they lay curled up together and drifting into sleep, Jason heard his phone vibrate.

He rolled over and looked at the screen.

J D 1 9 2

E A D 1 9 2

And suddenly he was wide awake, his mind spinning. JD Jason Danes. EAD. Emily’s middle name was Anne. Emily Anne Danes?

The display cleared.

He sat up. Why Emily? Why was her name there? What was 192?

Who are you? What do you want?

He lay in the darkness, fear washing through him.

Why us? Why the hell us?

65

Monday 24 December

Christmas decorations were strung across the oak beams of the Ginger Fox, and a log fire burned in the grate next to the pub’s bar. The interior had a festive aroma of wood smoke and roasting meats.

Earlier that morning, just in time after working through much of the night, Jason had delivered the painting of the two labradoodles and the sketch of the King Charles spaniel that he’d had to painstakingly recreate. Now relieved that he could relax, he and Emily sat at the wooden table facing Louise and her husband, Des, a man who was as thin as his wife was plump. They’d pulled the crackers laid out for them within minutes of arriving, read out the dreadful jokes inside and were now wearing their paper hats.

‘Cheers!’ Des said. ‘Merry Christmas!’ He raised his glass of Ridgeview bubbly and the other three raised theirs, clinked glasses, and drank.

‘Let’s hope ghosts take a day or two off at Christmas, too,’ Jason said.

He laughed heartily. The two women looked at each other, a little uncomfortably.

‘Never mind Froggie champers,’ Des said. ‘This knocks the socks off anything!’

‘It’s – like – yum!’ Emily said.

‘I like it a lot,’ Jason said. ‘To me it has all the complexity of a French Grand Marque.’

‘Depends which house you’re talking about,’ Des replied.

Jason knew the man had spent twenty years in the wine industry before being made redundant. He now sold health insurance. Jason couldn’t help feeling there was something ironic about that. ‘I’m sure you’re right.’

‘You should try Tattinger 2000.’

‘Is that the price or the year?’ Jason quizzed.

He smiled. ‘Very witty. You’ll find the price is a lot less than the year – at present, anyhow.’

‘So, how’s tricks, Des?’ he asked.

‘Brilliant, to be honest. I got a birdie at the thirteenth last week!’

‘Really?’

He nodded proudly. Really proudly, as if this was his finest achievement of the year.

‘Good for you.’

He raised both his index fingers and held them a couple of inches apart. ‘And I just missed a hole in one by that much on the eighth!’