‘Jesus.’

All the windows had an identical crack to the ones downstairs, right across the middle.

‘What is it, Jason?’ Emily said. Her voice was barely a whisper. ‘What is it? What’s happening?’

Without answering, he went back down to the first floor and checked each of the spare rooms in turn, then the master bedroom, before heading on down in numb silence, and checking out the kitchen.

Every mirror and every window in the house had an identical crack. A single line, broken with two jagged spikes, before carrying on again.

‘What is it, what’s done that?’ Emily asked, shaking.

There was another, much louder, splintering crack right above them.

They both looked up, in terror.

Another identical crack had appeared above them, right across the kitchen ceiling. Tiny fragments of plaster, like dust motes, fluttered down.

68

Wednesday 26 December

They ran out into the hall and through into the living room, looking up at the ceiling again. ‘Subsidence,’ he mouthed, almost silently.

‘What?’

‘Subsidence, there’s something wrong with the foundations. The builders have fucked up with the foundations. Something’s seriously not right.’

‘It’s not subsidence, Jason, is it? You know it isn’t. It is not subsidence.’

He continued staring at the ceiling. His voice trembling, he said, ‘I don’t think ghosts break windows or make cracks in ceilings.’

‘Or smoke cigars out in the street? Or turn up disguised as vicars?’

A sharp, malevolent, female voice rang out from the kitchen.

‘Nor speak from a command box that’s been unplugged!’

They froze.

Emily looked at him, her face the colour of ice. ‘Wh-what was that?’

Cautioning her with his hand to stay where she was, he walked back to the kitchen. As he entered, he heard a man say, in a northern accent, ‘It’s not unplugged, Lulu, you daft bitch!’

To his surprise the television was on. A young couple, in a modern kitchen, were both staring at an identical command box to their own.

‘I unplugged the bloody thing, I’m certain I did, Ray, to stop the alarm waking us every morning.’

‘At what time would you like an alarm call?’ the device spoke in a commanding female voice.

‘I don’t want a bloody alarm call.’

‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand your request.’

The man on the screen looked, exasperated, at the woman.

There was a close-up of the device, clearly plugged in.

‘I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘I unplugged it!’

‘Yeah, right, so it just plugged itself back in?’

Jason felt Emily’s arms around him. ‘At least we have one rational explanation,’ she said.

‘Except I didn’t turn the television on, and nor did you.’

‘Maybe one of us touched the remote?’

‘I’ll take that, for now.’ Jason looked at the very-definitely unplugged device on the table.

‘So will I.’ Emily shot a glance at the ceiling again.

He picked up the remote and turned off the television. ‘I’ll call Paul Jordan first thing – we need to get a surveyor, urgently.’

‘Where are we going to find one in Christmas week? The agency’s probably shut until after the holidays.’