Deano licked his lips in anticipation, but then the stranger took out a bottle with a spray nozzle on it, and lifted it towards him. He barely had time to focus before he heard a hiss – and felt an excruciating pain in his eyes.

‘Aaargh!’ Deano clutched his face. The agony was indescribable; his eyeballs felt like they were on fire, the pain sizzling all the way behind his sockets and into his skull. His cheeks felt like they were melting, and his nose and ears. He wheeled away, blinded.

Dimly, he heard the train approaching and wanted to wave his arms – Help me! – but couldn’t bear to tear his hands away from his face. He scratched at his eyes with his nails in a desperate attempt to claw away the pain.

And then – he didn’t understand it – there was another sharp sensation in his ribs, a shocking jolt, accompanied by a harsh buzz. He yelped and reared away. Unable to comprehend what it was, or what was happening to him, he stumbled backwards. Twisting an ankle, he only just managed to keep his balance before he felt another burning shock in the soft flesh of his stomach. Confused, helpless, Deano screeched. The pain – in his eyes, in his face and stomach – was beyond anything he had ever imagined.

Another excruciating shock, this time in his left side, made him squirm away – but then he felt another in his ribs. His eyes felt like they were on fire in their sockets, the skin on his face burning.

‘No,’ he screamed, helpless. ‘Stop it!’

There was another buzzing shock in his right side, then to his chest and stomach, and Deano jumped back, trying to get out of reach of his tormentor.

The roar of the train filled his ears now. He cried for help, for someone to come and help him, and make it stop.

And then he felt another prolonged shock on his belly; the searing pain and the buzz seemed to last forever, and he smelled his own flesh burn. His face was on fire, and now his stomach.

Deano had to get away, he had to make it stop, to get help – and he leaped.

Straight off the platform and into the path of the train.

2

Detective Inspector Sasha Dawson pulled her knackered Spider Veloce into the station car park, negotiating a narrow space between a patrol car and a forensics van. She was carefully nosing the front end forward, using the wing mirrors as she edged into the space with inches to spare on either side, when her phone began to ring in her bag on the passenger seat, causing her unnecessary anxiety during the delicate manoeuvre.

‘Wait a minute,’ she appealed to the impatient phone. ‘Just let me…’

As soon as she was satisfied the front bumper was nestled against the kerb, she cranked the handbrake and killed the engine.

Flustered, Sasha dug the phone from her bag. ‘Yes?’