Chapter One

Rupert Barker nodded to sleep in the semi-darkness, the light coming from the glow of the coal fire, as orange flickers bounced off the Christmas decorations draped over the tree. His favourite armchair did its work, as always, high-backed leather, and he had drifted in and out of a doze for most of the afternoon.

Then he heard a noise.

He sat up quickly and looked around. The newspaper slid from his knee to the floor. He couldn’t hear anything else, apart from the crackle of the fire. Perhaps it had been in his dream. Then he heard it again.

His eyes shot to the window. It sounded like someone was at the fence that ran along the garden at the back of his house, climbing over maybe, the noise like heavy feet kicking against the wooden panels, the fence the only thing that separated him from the darkness of the church yard.

He pulled himself to his feet and groaned as his knees froze for a few seconds, age catching up with him, sixty-six the following month. He shuffled towards the window, but he felt scared, exposed. He was in a room at the back of the house, the curtains open, and he knew that whoever was out there would be able to see in. When he reached the window, he pressed his face against the glass to blot out the glare from the fire and tried to see into the garden. He could see only shadows and the silhouette of the church tower, a square Norman block with the iron finger of the weather vane creaking in the breeze, a dark outline against the clear sky, the stars emerging as dots in the blanket.

He cupped his hands around his eyes. There wasn’t much to the garden, just a square patch of grass surrounded by plants and trees, a bird-feeder hanging from a branch. A laurel bush in one corner took all the water from the ground, so that the grass was threadbare underneath, and some bamboos he had planted a couple of years earlier swayed in front of the fence. But there was no one there.

He stepped away from the window, told himself that it must have been a cat, or maybe kids playing in the church yard. But then he thought he saw some movement from the side of the laurel bush, something large and fast. He went to the window again. There was something there, and he shouted out when he saw it turn and rush at the glass.

Rupert stepped back, scared, and tumbled over the chair he had been sitting in. He was falling, flailing at the air, the flicker of the hearth turning sideways as he headed to the ground.

He landed heavily, searing pain coming from his wrist, but then he heard the back door open and heavy footsteps came into the house.

Rupert looked up and saw the outline of a man, tall and broad, his clothes dark, black trousers tucked into his boots and with a woollen hat hiding his hair. A hand was outstretched.

‘Are you all right?’ the voice said.

Rupert looked up and then shuffled quickly along the floor, moving away from the intruder until he felt his back hit the wall. ‘Who are you, and why are you in my house?’

‘I’m sorry, Doctor Barker, I didn’t mean to scare you, but I had to come and see you,’ the voice said. He sounded scared, the words coming out with a tremble. ‘You’re the only one who can help me.’

Rupert felt his stomach turn over. Doctor Barker. It was a patient, it had to be, thirty years as a child psychologist giving him a hit-list of the frightened and vulnerable across Lancashire, helping children who showed worrying signs that they were heading the wrong way.

‘I can’t help you,’ Rupert said. ‘I’m retired. Look at me. I’m just an old man now.’

The man stepped closer to Rupert, and his face came within the light of the fire. The flames danced around his features, so that his eyes seemed to glimmer menacingly. Rupert smelled stale beer and cigarettes and sweat. Then Rupert recognised something, just in the way that he tilted his head as he took in what Rupert had said.

‘No, no, it’s you I need,’ the intruder said, his voice breaking. ‘It’s happening again.’

‘What’s happening again?’ Rupert said.

‘The need,’ the intruder said.

‘What need?’

‘Don’t talk like you don’t know, doctor,’ the intruder said, his voice breaking. ‘We talked about it, you taught me how to control it, but I can’t do that any more.’

Rupert closed his eyes for a moment and tried to remember where he had seen that stare before. The tilted head, the wide eyes. But the man in front of him looked nearly forty, and so it meant going back too many years.

‘When does it come, this need?’ Rupert said.

‘All the time now,’ the man said. ‘Before, it would come mainly at night, when I was alone, feeling, you know, wound up, but now it’s there when I wake up, like an itch, an urge.’ He paused, and Rupert thought he was trying not to cry. ‘It’s all I think about, Doctor Barker. I want to hurt someone.’

Rupert closed his eyes for a moment.

‘I follow people,’ the man continued.

‘What do you mean?’ Rupert said, his eyes open, alarmed.

‘Just that,’ was the reply. ‘I see someone, and I start to imagine what they would be like naked, and then I think of how they would be if I was hurting them, how scared they would be.’

‘Have you hurt anyone yet?’

The man shook his head.

‘You need help,’ Rupert said quietly. ‘It can’t come from me. I’m too old now, retired, out of touch. But you must get help. Speak to your doctor. Trust them like you trusted me.’

The intruder paused, and then he said, ‘You said you would be there for me, and now I need you, you’re sending me away.’

‘No,’ Rupert said, his voice steady now, trying to keep the intruder calm. ‘I’m telling you where to get help. Speak to your doctor. Please. It’s for the best.’ Rupert sat up. ‘I don’t remember you. What’s your name?’

The intruder shook his head. ‘I thought I mattered. I see people all the time, you see. On the street, in their homes, and I want them, and I know that I will take it. I want to stop myself, but it never ceases. All day. All night. You have to stop it, Doctor Barker.’

Rupert shook his head. ‘No, you have to stop it,’ he said. ‘Don’t make it my fault. You have the power now.’

The intruder took a deep breath and put his head back. Rupert closed his eyes and waited for the blow, for his life to be squeezed away, but there was nothing. He opened his eyes slowly, and he saw that he was alone again, just the orange flickers around the walls, the back door swinging open, letting the heat out from the fire.