He heard her voice in his head, husky and exotic. He wished he could have seen America while he was still alive. Now, his body was in an advanced stage of decomposition. Perhaps that was why he’d become so thirsty during the fight. His corpse was shedding liquid from its cells and beginning to succumb to the bacteria that would reduce him to nothing but bones and hair eventually. He was beginning to bloat and his body reeked. There was mossy green growth between his toes, and the fingernails on his hands were blackening. Last night, two of his teeth had fallen from their sockets. He’d helped them along with some insistent tugging – the thought of swallowing them in his sleep had been disgusting – but they’d exited his gums with no blood loss. Naturally, how could he bleed while his heart wasn’t pumping?

The girl had been a handful. Little viper. It wasn’t just Elspeth who’d proved a disappointment. He thought he’d chosen so well. A child who wasn’t happy at home should be pleased to be given a new loving family. Still, she’d done nothing but whine and complain since she’d arrived. Fucking Emily. How could a ten-year-old be so much more trouble than an adult? He’d had to punish her on multiple occasions already, showing her who was boss with the sole of his shoe on her behind.

Only that wasn’t right. Emily had been blonde. She’d been sweet and giggly, hiding in the woods from her brother. He remembered throwing the girl’s pink running shoes into Linlithgow Loch after he’d put her in the boot of his car. Emily had been his only act of spontaneity. His first and last.

He tried to recall the hair colour of the girl tied up in his bedroom, only her features and colouring kept shifting in his mind.

‘The girl’s a monster,’ he told himself. ‘She’s been tricking me. She changed her face.’

And there was something else he’d forgotten. He’d left something somewhere. Not in his car. He was careful about keeping that free from anything that might make anyone suspicious.

Fergus looked around the kitchen for a clue. Nothing there.

He would ask Elspeth and Emily. They’d know.

Climbing the stairs slowly, his legs cramping and head thumping, he tried to figure out what the date was. He only had a little time left now. Not sufficient to achieve all he’d wanted to, but the world around him was disintegrating. Soon, his legs would be unable to support him. He had to finish preparations for the end while he could still drive. His eyesight was fading, too. There were pixelated edges to his peripheral vision, and he was having to turn his head left and right to see around him.