‘For God’s sake, you could have broken your bloody neck if you’d fallen down the stairs.’ He helped me to my feet, regarding me with a mixture of concern and exasperation as I staggered a little. ‘I’m taking you to A & E – you need checking over.’

I protested that I was fine, but he was insistent.

We spent over two hours in the hospital waiting room, but thankfully, an egg-sized lump on the back of my head and the cut shin aside, I was relatively unscathed. More importantly, the baby’s heartbeat was strong and it was kicking wildly to make its presence known. An emergency ultrasound confirmed that everything looked fine. I almost cried with relief.

‘Don’t you ever do anything like that again,’ Jack warned me as we lay in bed later. I felt tearful and foolish, thinking of the damage I could have done to our baby.

‘I’m sorry.’ My voice was as small as I felt.

He sighed, turning and pulling me to him. ‘You gave me such a scare. That could’ve ended really badly. You do realise that?’

‘I know, it was a stupid thing to do. But I was sure I heard someone moving around again, and then voices up there, too. It’s driving me crazy.’

‘Listen, I’ll take the morning off, go in a bit later,’ he said, then seeing my surprise that he’d be going in at all, added, ‘I know it’s Sunday, but it’s been really busy this week and I had promised to do a few hours. I’ll go up into the attic and have a proper look, see if there’s anything obvious going on. Hopefully it’ll put your mind at rest. In the meantime, try to get some sleep.’

Drained by my ordeal, I nestled gratefully into the safety of his arms and soon drifted off, the rising sun spilling across us where we lay. I dreamed fitfully of multitudes of panic-stricken cats, clawing at the walls of our home in a bid for freedom; of Kenny’s witch bottle, tumbling down the chimney and spewing its revolting contents onto the living room floor; of Mrs Barley chanting over a candlelit shrine.

And of the menacing shadow of a man’s hand, reaching down towards me through the ceiling.

*

My head banging, I woke to hear voices outside. Jack was talking to Kenny. I groaned, remembering he had said he would be calling briefly, to finish tying the area he had been working on the previous day. Inevitably it would mean more noise.