She walked back to the car and got in, throwing her bag on the back seat, pleased with how the interview went. When she arrived at the university, it was still in the process of waking up. She loved this time of day. The time before everything started; it was like the sucking in of breath before a large exhale. It was a time of possibility. The night was over and the new day could begin.

Gillian put her key in the door to her office, but it clicked open – it was already unlocked. She was sure she had locked it the night before. Since the murder of Hugh Norris everyone at the university was on high alert, everyone was paranoid, except for Gillian. She knew that bad things were just a fact of life. Hugh’s office was directly underneath Gillian’s. She hadn’t heard or witnessed anything, though; she was elsewhere, she had made sure of it beforehand.

There was something wrong in her office; someone had been here, someone had been looking for something. She wondered if they had found what they were looking for and what that something was.

She couldn’t quite understand why she was jumpy this morning. There was something in the air, a taste she wasn’t used to, a feeling she hadn’t felt for a long time: she was afraid. Not even the police presence had made her particularly nervous, so what was she sensing now? Whatever it was, it was making the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. There was someone else in the room.

‘I know what you did.’ The man’s voice came from behind her. ‘Don’t turn around.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. This is ridiculous. Get out of my office.’

‘I know all of the things you did, Ms Mitchell. I’ve been watching you.’

‘You should go before you get in trouble,’ Gillian said.

She could hear his voice getting nearer until she could almost feel his breath disturbing her hair.

‘With who? You? I’m out of your league.’

‘You don’t know what you’re getting into!’ she said. She had heard the voice recently, but for the life of her she couldn’t place it. It wasn’t someone she knew, but it was someone she had spoken to before.

‘That’s where you’re wrong.’

A hand on her shoulder and a punching feeling in her back distracted her momentarily as the strange sensation passed through Gillian’s stomach. She looked down and saw the end of a fireside poker; the harpoon-like hook had gone right through her. Blood had started to trickle out. She felt the man behind her grip onto her shoulder and she knew what he was planning to do next. He pulled hard, the speared end of the poker taking parts of her with it. The blood started to glug from her wound, destroying her linen suit, a strange consideration for her to have given the circumstances. But then Gillian had never been quite right in the head. That’s what had drawn her to study psychology in the first place – to learn why she was the way she was.