The first time I thought I saw him I was terrified. The police wouldn’t do anything, couldn’t do anything. He hadn’t approached me. Hadn’t threatened me. It wasn’t a crime to be walking down the street. I felt exposed and alone in a world that felt shaky much of the time anyway. Marie tried to hide in the bottom of a bottle of Jack Daniels while Carly hid indoors. Home felt like the safest place until I opened the door to a pizza delivery man, and it was him. I screamed and he ran away. This time the police visited him but he whipped an alibi from his hat and with sleight of hand he was free. It was me who was trapped. I saw him everywhere, documenting it all in a diary while George took me to the station again and again until they arrested him for stalking. I hadn’t known they were holding him and when I went to file another report about him coming to my house – this time wearing a post office uniform – it was me who was arrested for wasting police time. He was in custody, they told me. Currently in a cell in this very building. It was impossible that the postman had been him ‘unless he’s bleeding Houdini’ I was told sarcastically. I cried. I wouldn’t admit to lying because I hadn’t been. I stuck to my story over and over until at last I was released into the freezing car park. A light mist swirling around my ankles, breathing in damp. There was a figure by my car, waiting.

Him.

I screamed and screamed until the officer who had interviewed me had raced outside and escorted me back to the small interview room.

‘Please.’ I looked over my shoulder. ‘He’s following me. Please.’ Why wasn’t I being taken seriously?

‘I don’t know what game you’re playing but…’

I threw another glance behind me. It was definitely still him. Still following me.

My legs were shaking so hard I collapsed. A duty doctor was called who verified that the man by my car – the man who followed me back into the station – was Detective Inspector Lansford. He had wanted to make sure I was okay.

I wasn’t.

It was impossible to pull myself together. To change my story. I knew what I had seen, and I had seen him. The doctor recommended I was sectioned for my own safety and George was called. He raced to the station, having picked up Francesca on the way, and it was she who had saved me. Confused by my garbled stories of being stalked at my therapy sessions, and my subsequent charge, she’d been researching and she realized I had Fregoli Syndrome.

‘Freg— xswhat?’ the officer dealing with us asked scathingly.

‘Fregoli Syndrome. It’s a rare neurological disorder. There aren’t a huge number of diagnosed cases but there are thought to be a high number of undiagnosed cases.’

‘And what is it exactly, this Fregoli?’