He could sense she was looking at him and he turned his head to face her. Through the last few hours there’d been times when he’d been too terrified to move, because of the ghosts. He’d seen Angela, the wife he’d murdered, standing there close to Mary Kate, with their daughter Sarah by her side. Mary Kate had lain whimpering, and a man had come to join them, running his transparent fingers over her hair and face as if to try and comfort her. McGuffey thought he must be delirious with the fever. They didn’t look his way – it was as if he was the one who was invisible – and he barely blinked for the fear of them, until the ghosts slipped back into the wall of the cave and he and Mary Kate were alone once more. It was only then that he found the courage to speak as she cried out to him.

‘Why do you want me?’ she mumbled.

He forced his response, his eyes darting, searching the dark for more unwanted visitors. ‘Quiet. We’ll be gone and they’ll be here for you soon, before tonight. Stop your crying. You aren’t here for long.’

He could speak no more than a few words at a time. All of his focus had to be on fighting the pain and staying alive. He kept slipping in and out of consciousness. Only his mind could save him from what he knew was his fate; if he gave in to the fire coursing through his veins and the pain that had rendered him almost unable to think straight, he would no longer be in the cave in earthly form but trapped amongst the ghosts that were hovering and whispering his name, faceless in the shadows.

Jay scuttled in from under the curtain of vegetation, clicked on his torch and jumped back as his beam lit the terrified face of Mary Kate; it was as though he’d forgotten she was there. McGuffey jolted into consciousness again and his hand automatically reached for his gun.

Jay grinned at the sight of Mary Kate’s obvious distress and then, ignoring her, he dropped to his haunches at the side of McGuffey. ‘They have the letter. I hid behind one of the graves to watch after I put it on the door. Running about like fecking headless chickens, so they were.’

Mary Kate, her eyes open and petrified, groaned.

‘Shut yer mouth,’ he hissed, then turned back to McGuffey. ‘They won’t call the guard, not after what you wrote in that letter.’ He winked.

McGuffey pulled himself up against the wall. ‘Did you get anything for the pain?’

‘No, I couldn’t. But for the love of Jesus, the smell from your leg.’ Jay placed his hand over his mouth and wretched.

‘Is she all right?’ McGuffey nodded towards Mary Kate.

‘What do you care? There’ll be a thousand pounds sat on Sarah Malone’s grave at midnight tonight and then we’ll be away. She can stay as she is until then. You aren’t going soft on me, are you?’