‘Yes!’ he shouted. ‘Fucking yes. I’m married. We did it!’ He picked her up, arms around her hips, and hoisted her into the air, twirling her round and whoop-whooping.

He was stronger than he looked, but then she’d learned that the first time he’d picked her up and thrown her into the boot of his car. She made herself rigid rather than gripping his shoulders for balance, half hoping he wouldn’t drop her and crack her head on the floor, half hoping he would. It would mean a quicker end to the insanity.

‘It’s our honeymoon, Mrs Ariss,’ he said, staring up at her, eyes shining with a terrifying mixture of adoration and desperation.

It took Elspeth’s breath away.

She’d been wrong. He wasn’t just a monster. Monstrosity was singular and predictable. It was consistent and reliable. The man who honestly believed he’d just joined her in wedlock was also a child in an adult’s body. He could kidnap her, then feed her and keep her warm. He could strip her of the wedding band she cherished then celebrate his own union with her. Drug her then tell her he adored her. She wished he were just a monster. There were rules for those. Never look under your bed. Keep the closet door shut. Make sure your bedroom window was locked at night. But there were no rules that would keep you safe from this.

This was a credible, well-informed source of information that could tell you something awful had happened to her best friend, and that he’d been sent to ask her to go there immediately. This was a gentle voice with a concerned manner, who knew everything about her and her life. This was a planner and a stalker, super-fan and hater. She’d lost her life in a heartbeat to land in a fucked-up hellhole of a honeymoon with a psychopath.

‘We should consummate it,’ Fergus muttered, more to himself than to her.

Elspeth backed up against the wall.

‘It’s not legal unless we consummate the marriage. I read that once. In the old days there’d have been witnesses.’ He laughed and looked away. ‘We won’t have any of those, but we’ll know, won’t we? That we did it all properly, I mean.’

Elspeth shook her head, raising her hands and making small fists in front of her mouth.

‘Don’t-want-to,’ she stuttered, her breath hitching between each word.

‘We’ll have to at some stage, for it to be real.’

‘We should …’ She tried to get some air into her lungs. ‘We should celebrate first. I mean, we just got married. Do you have any wine, beer even? Anything?’

He patted his body up and down as if he might find some hidden, long forgotten bottle secreted on his person.