The final news clipping was an obituary. Layla Alami’s cancer had returned, and this time the chemotherapy could not save her.

You did this, message number eight starkly informed me. You stole her will to fight.

More messages, then:

How can you live knowing she has died?

Do you enjoy spending the blood money?

I told you to stop but you ignored me. Now it’s too late…

Now it begins.

The flat intercom buzzed, and I let rip with a scream. I automatically threw my phone across the bed, heart thumping, the rest of me like one giant spasm of fear. Chest jerking with each heaving breath, I scrabbled off the bed and to the window, pulling back the blind with a quaking finger. I couldn’t make out enough of the main entrance to see whether anyone lurked in the shadows there, but the rest of the street appeared to be empty.

Another message pinged.

Bloody hell. Should I call 999? I grabbed my phone and saw, to my utter terror, a photograph of the flat entrance. Not the main entrance, but the door into my actual flat, only a few metres down the corridor. In front of the door was a box, wrapped in brown paper and tied up with a red bow.

I waited an agonising fifteen minutes before creeping down the corridor, staring through the spyhole, heart still veering dangerously close to supersonic, trying in vain to quieten my sobs and rampant breathing long enough to hear whether anyone was still out there. I could leave it until the morning. Call Lucy and ask her to come over so we can look at it together.

While agreeing with myself wholeheartedly on this wise and rational decision, another part of me whipped the door open, snatched the box and slammed it shut again, clicking the locks into place before sliding down to join the delivery on the welcome mat.

‘Crap, Eleanor, what did you do that for?’ I whispered.

Now I was going to have to open it, wasn’t I?

Slowly, gingerly, I unwrapped the box.

Inside, encased in plastic packaging, was, if my food-industry expert eyes were not mistaken, a heart.

A lamb’s heart, at a guess.

Raw, obviously. Bloody and squelchy.

There was a typed note in the box:

A gift, seeing as yours appears to be missing. We will discuss your future plans in person soon.

Minutes later, having thrown an assorted pile of random items into the nearest bags I could find, I paused to take a photo of the heart, the box and its wrapping and then dumped it in the outside bin on my way the heck outta there.

13

Waking up the next morning, it took me a moment to remember why the usual feeling of ugh had been replaced with a flutter of anticipation: oh yes! I was going to make Charlie’s dream come true and transform a ramshackle, rickety farm into an exquisite getaway venue. I was going to atone for at least some of the awfulness that I’d contributed to the world by spending the foreseeable future helping restore and build people up instead of smashing them down. Hope would have a beautiful place to live, and Daniel might even be able to take a day off once in a while. I’d cook, and clean, and for the first time enjoy the far more challenging and noble craft of being a creator, not a critic.