‘I’ll try online, see if I can get a taxi that way,’ he said, and headed up to his studio. Emily followed close behind, her hands gripping his waist all the way up.

He sat at his desk and tried to log on. But the computer wouldn’t connect to the Wi-Fi. The curves of the black fan symbol chased up and down repeatedly, hunting for a connection. Suddenly the room was plunged into darkness.

Emily shrieked.

It had gone dark out in the street, too. Pitch dark.

Jason looked out of the window. ‘The street lights have gone off. There must be a power cut.’

‘Shit!’ Emily said. ‘No, it can’t be – what about all the food in the fridge? All my prawns will be ruined.’

‘They’ll stay cold for several hours, won’t they?’

‘For a few hours, so long as I keep the door shut. Oh shit, shit, shit.’

‘The power will be on quickly.’

‘Oh yes? We’ve not had a power cut here before. What if it’s not back on in a few hours? Do you have any idea what that would mean? We can’t even phone the electricity company to find out what’s happening. If I could start my van, I could switch the refrigeration on in that and put them there for the night, they’d be fine. But I can’t do that. We should have bought a generator – I did think about it.’

‘A bit late for that.’

‘Yes. And now we’re totally trapped.’

‘We’re not trapped. We can walk down to the village. We’ll phone for a taxi from the pub – or the RAC, get them to start your van, then we can put the prawns in.’

‘What if the power’s out there, too?’

‘I’m sure they’ll have a landline, and the landlord’s a helpful guy.’

‘Anything’s better than staying here in the dark, with a fucking ghost wandering around.’

Holding hands and using his torch, they carefully descended the spiral staircase, carried on down into the hall and out of the front door.

‘Got the key?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’

Jason closed the door behind them. A strong, cold wind had suddenly got up, and a gust, as ferocious as the one in the house, blasted them, as if it had followed them out. A tarpaulin in the front garden of the half-built house next door was flapping noisily. As they walked along the pavement, still guided by Jason’s torch beam, they both smelled the strong aroma of cigar smoke. A short distance along, on the other side of the road, there was a red glow.

Jason pointed the beam across and saw the silhouette of a man, standing beneath an unlit street light, smoking a cigar.

‘Hi!’ he called out.

There was no response.

He tried to step out into the road, but Emily held him back. ‘Jason, careful, who is he?’

In a lowered voice Jason answered, ‘Must be the chap Maurice Penze-Weedell was talking about, who he always sees on his evening constitutional. Hi!’ he repeated.