Abs looked at the pale, thick liquid slopping inside, and took it in his hand. He placed the glass slowly to his lips, blanching at its acrid smell, and then jerked his hand to throw it in her face. But his reactions were too slow and Rachel grabbed his wrist. The glass fell from his grasp and smashed to the floor, spilling bleach across the tile.

‘Very well.’ With a terse nod, Rachel marched across the kitchen. The contents of the cutlery drawer shivered when she opened it to look for something suitable to kill him with.

‘It’s over, Jez, and you know it.’ Sasha climbed slowly onto her hands and knees. When she lifted her neck, she felt light-headed, and knew she wouldn’t be able to get up before he could shock her again with the cattle prod. ‘Killing us will not help you now. Please stop her.’

Tears raced down Jez’s red cheeks. ‘Mummy?’

He watched anxiously as Rachel took out potential weapons – knives, a rolling pin, scissors – and threw them on the granite counter. But then she lifted out a long metal needle with a bulbous gauge at its head – a meat thermometer – and held it up.

‘Don’t listen to her,’ Rachel told him as her shoes clipped briskly back across the tile, picking up speed, lifting the long point of the needle above her head, drawing it back.

Abs cried out in terror as she bore down on him, ready to plunge it into his eye, and he threw up a hand in front of his face. The point went through the palm and out the other side. He screamed in agony, but managed to grab her wrist with his other hand, twisting it as hard as he could.

‘Get him!’ Rachel commanded her son as she grappled with Abs. ‘Don’t just stand there!’ Paralysed with indecision, Jez lifted the cattle prod. ‘Get him off me!’

Sasha heard the device buzz as Jez pressed the button on the handle and stepped forward.

‘Shock him,’ Rachel howled. ‘Do it now!’

Abs was using all his remaining strength to twist Rachel’s wrist, keeping the hand impaled with the thermometer out of her reach. With a grimace, he swung her body around—

Just as Sasha grabbed Jez’s ankle, making him stumble. The cattle prod shot forward, and the double-pronged tip jammed into the centre of Rachel’s chest.

She screamed and juddered. Letting out a strangled yelp, she fell, her body twisting on the tile, arms and legs jerking as she began to seizure.

‘Mummy!’ Jez dropped to his knees, tried to hold her flailing limbs.

‘Don’t touch her,’ warned Sasha, crawling over and rolling Rachel on her side to keep her airway clear.