By the time I reached home my hands ached from gripping the wheel, and my neck had grown stiff from twisting my head around whenever a glance in the mirror failed to suffice. I was afraid the absence of any unwelcome reflection needn’t mean I was alone in the car. Each time I found myself surrounded by traffic, panic closed in too, a fear that I might be distracted from driving and cause a crash as my father had. When I left the motorway at last I felt just as vulnerable at every junction, fearful I’d be tricked into losing control, crossing the line in front of an oncoming vehicle or lurching past a red light. I hoped the tunnel could offer some respite, but it felt like being buried too far underground for miles. Knowing the river was overhead for much of the length of the tunnel didn’t help. Surely even Bella couldn’t cause it to be flooded, which simply meant she had some other fate in store for me. I kept telling myself I’d needed to act as I had in order to protect Roy, but until I did I’d failed to grasp how I would be alone with whatever I’d brought on myself.

The whole of my apartment felt as if it housed a threat, even once I’d switched on all the lights. The emptiness of every room needn’t mean any of them would remain deserted when I turned my back. Although the bathroom mirror showed nobody behind me, I couldn’t help glancing around, for the reflection had started to feel like a trick. I was glad to leave it behind, even if this meant retreating to my bedroom. At least the quilt lay too flat to be concealing an intruder, and I was trying to persuade myself that I should do my best to sleep when I noticed a faint trail glistening on the pillow.

It might have been left by a snail or a slug. Was it meant to tell me nowhere was a refuge? When I seized one corner of the pillow I felt as if I were about to turn over a stone. I jerked the pillow aside, and the object that had left the trail reached to lick my wrist before withdrawing into a mouth. Apart from the wide gleeful eyes, these were the only features the flattened face displayed. With a grin that promised worse to come, it vanished into the mattress as though sinking into a marsh.