My faith has definitely been tested this year. My mum always used to tell me to say my prayers whenever I wanted something good to happen, and she always had faith that things would work out for the best; but my father treated her terribly and made her unhappy for most of her adult life, and then she got cancer, and then she died. And I can’t understand why any benevolent god would let that happen, and I definitely don’t believe in any higher justice. It seems to me that good people, innocent people, and animals often suffer worst in this world, and bad people get away with bad things all the time.

The door bangs shut and I jump, but it’s just Liam.

‘Did you find anything?’ I ask him.

‘No,’ he scowls, coming to stand by me.

‘Why would they write that?’ I ask again.

‘I’ve already told you,’ he says, sounding impatient, ‘How would I know?’

‘Well, you’re a detective, you must have some idea.’

‘I’m not a forensic psychologist,’ he replies. ‘Try not to worry. It’s just someone trying to scare us, that’s all.’

‘But why?’ I ask, the icy sensation reaching the tips of my fingers and toes. ‘Why would they want to scare us?’

‘Because they’re crazy?’ Liam responds with a shrug. ‘Because they think it’s funny? I don’t know. It doesn’t matter why they did it. What matters is not letting it ruin our holiday.’

I press my lips together. It might be a little late for that.

‘Do you think they might be out there now, watching us?’ I ask, wrapping my arms around myself to keep out the sudden chill.

A frown line appears between Liam’s eyes. ‘No,’ he answers.

‘They could be,’ I press him. ‘We don’t know.’

Liam marches forwards and draws the curtain back across the window, then he casts a look over his shoulder as though half-expecting to find someone standing in the room with us. He’s spooked. Genuinely spooked. For all his nonchalant talk about not worrying, he really is worried.

He walks into the kitchen and closes the curtains there too, and then he double-checks the back door is locked. ‘There,’ he says to me. ‘No one’s spying on us. Shall we have breakfast? I’m starving.’

I know he’s trying to put a brave face on it and pretend he’s not rattled, so I play along even though I’m not hungry. ‘OK.’

We left this morning before we’d had breakfast, and now it’s closer to lunch, but I grab the bacon, sausages and eggs from the fridge and put them down on the side. ‘“Devil”,’ I muse, lifting the cast-iron pan off its hook and setting it down on the hob. ‘It’s such a strange thing to write.’