Allison sipped her wine and listened to him talk. She was impressed with his cooking skills; he seemed to know exactly what to do – stirring, adding ingredients with dramatic flair. Not a cookery book in sight. He was proving to be a very interesting man. And handsome; her eyes drifted over his muscular upper arms, the soft hairs on his forearms, his dexterous fingers. A slight belly rather than the six-pack she preferred was more than counterbalanced by those melting brown eyes.

She felt the first stirrings of desire and struggled to concentrate on what he was saying.

He lifted a lid, gave the contents a stir, turned the heat down and turned to pick up his glass. ‘They made space for me, though. We were a tight threesome while I was growing up. When I decided to get my own place, I didn’t go far and when Mum died suddenly, I moved back home to be with Dad, who was lost without her.’ He took a mouthful of wine, his expression softening with memories. ‘Totally lost. I watched him fade away, almost day by day.’ He tilted his head to the door. ‘We’d sit at the dining table every night and pore over photographs. Mum at the beach, walking along the canal, on various holidays. And he’d tell a story of things she did, the funny things she’d say. Although I was devastated when he died, I wasn’t really surprised. He wanted to be with her.’

Allison was fascinated by the glisten of tears in his eyes. She wasn’t sure she’d met anyone like him before. She refused to entertain the idea that she was finding him far more interesting now that she’d seen his home. ‘There must be a lot of memories in this house.’

‘Yes.’ He put his glass down and returned to his pots, stirring one after the other, gusts of steam rising as he lifted each lid. ‘I wasn’t sure if I could stay at first, but the house is full of happy memories. It was a comfort.’ He put a lid on the pot and switched off the heat. ‘Right.’ He picked up the bottle of wine. ‘Come through and get seated; this is almost ready.’

He pushed open a door into a room stuck firmly in the seventies. Burgundy flocked wallpaper clashed with the swirling waves of red-and-gold-patterned carpet covering the floor. Luckily, most of this horror was obscured by an ugly mahogany table and chairs, and a matching oversized dresser. A single lightshade cast a curious glow over everything. She shivered. Had Peter lied? He’d said the house was filled with happy memories, so why did she feel menace in the air? A curious foreboding. It made her reluctant to enter.