‘Only one way to be sure, I suppose. Like I said, I have that ouija board somewhere if you want to ask him. I’m serious, you know. I saved up my pocket money as a kid and bought the official Psychic Circle Spirit Board. I’d have to wait until after Mum went to bed because she hated all that stuff. I’d sit there in my bedroom with the board and a notepad, all set to take down the messages from the other side.’

He pulled the longneck to his mouth, glanced down at it as if the taste had soured, then set the bottle down on the kitchen counter with a loud thud.

‘I guess Dad was the silent type,’ he said. ‘Because his ghost never told me shit.’

Marcus’s mood had darkened – something she wouldn’t have thought possible – and Kate sensed it was time to leave.

She noticed her phone buzzing softly from inside the handbag she’d slung over the side of the chair. There were two missed calls from Fisher. He was probably wondering where she’d got to. ‘I have to go. Thank you for your time.’

He looked at her longingly for a moment. Did he want her to stay, or did he want something from her?

‘What is it?’ she asked.

‘Dad’s obituary,’ he said, sheepishly shifting his weight from his left foot to his right. ‘Mind if I hang onto it?’

There was a good chance David Stemple’s obituary was evidence, but then she thought of how Eckman had said John’s body belonged to the police – how it had made her feel. She took the folded paper from her pocket and placed it on the coffee table, between an empty cup of stale noodles and the glass bong.

Marcus nodded his thanks from the kitchen doorway, and asked, ‘Why did you come here?’

‘To figure out John’s connection to your father,’ she said, honestly.

‘If you have a theory, I’d love to hear it.’

As it happened, she did have a theory. From the outside looking in, she must have looked cool and composed, but inside, her mind was scrambling like a crab.

‘When John was younger, he started having these nightmares,’ she started. ‘Worse than nightmares, actually. Night terrors. It turned into a full-blown sleep disorder, and he started seeing things. Hallucinations. He saw a man with…’

‘What?’ Marcus asked.

She remembered the sketches she found in John’s notepad, remembered the Visitor – a heavy black jacket, a pair of tennis sneakers, and—

‘Moths,’ she said. ‘He saw a man with moths spilling out of a split in his head.’

Marcus said nothing. He didn’t move a muscle. He didn’t even blink. He just waited silently for Kate to go on.