‘What the fuck?’ Liam curses under his breath. ‘Is this some kind of game?’

I’ve never seen him this rattled before. In fact, I’ve never seen him afraid, until this moment. Liam marches to the window and yanks the curtain across, erasing the word from view. He turns around and I watch his jaw tensing and untensing, his brow furrowed.

‘What do you think it means?’ I ask him.

He shakes his head. ‘How am I supposed to know?’

I swallow, biting my tongue.

‘Devil,’ he says. ‘It doesn’t make sense.’ He starts to pace back and forth in front of the window as I stand quietly to one side and watch him. ‘It just …’ He breaks off and stops, yanking the curtain back again to see the word written there, as though he expects it to have vanished. He scratches at his neck, not tearing his gaze from the window.

‘Who would write that?’ I whisper.

Liam doesn’t say anything. Suddenly he makes for the front door.

‘Where are you going?’ I ask, worried.

‘Outside,’ he says. ‘I want to check those footprints again.’

‘Why?’

‘Because,’ he says, as he opens the door and steps out into the rain.

I follow him, hesitating in the doorway. The rain is coming down in fat drops, the clouds hanging low. I glance up the beach, to where I thought I saw someone standing yesterday. There’s no one there now, but the downpour is making it hard to see. I spot the cairn on the beach, still standing exactly as I left it.

Liam is over by the window, crouching down in the flowerbed, examining the footsteps, but the rain seems to have washed them mostly away.

I retreat out of the rain and walk into the living room where I contemplate the word etched into the window again. A cold chill spreads through me, like ice invading my veins. The letters have been carved deeply into the glass, and haphazardly, as if they were done in a hurry, by someone in a rage.

I believe in the devil; I’ve seen enough to know that evil exists in the world. In my job – my old job that is – animals were brought in occasionally that had been mistreated and abused, some so badly they had to be put down. So yes, I believe in the devil, but I have doubts sometimes that there is a god. If there is, I don’t know how he can let so much suffering occur and do nothing about it.