Why don’t I open it fully? Am I scared I will get into trouble for being up so late? Is it the tone of Angus's voice that scares me; the unctuous, pleading tone I'd never heard him use before? Is it the way Jessica's voice goes hard and angry, the beginning of a shout, a scream - and then nothing, a choking noise, gasps? I push the door just a little, just enough to see into the room. Enough to see Jessica and Angus. Enough to see his large hand over her face, his large hand on her small neck. Her puff of cornsilk hair shaking back and forth. The monster from the stones is here in this room, all bulging eyes and bared teeth. I watch from the doorway, watch as the black cloud flows over her. Her bare legs buckle. I can see the dirty soles of her feet as Angus lowers her to the floor.

I don't scream. I make no sound. I have to get away before I too am swallowed up, eaten by the monster with a taste for small blond girls. I am aware that my trousers are wet, wet with a warmth that rapidly cools. I am climbing the stairs, not daring to look behind me. I can hear sobs coming from the living room, a terrible, harsh tearing noise that goes on and on. I have never heard my father cry before. I am in my bedroom again, but I am not safe - while that door is open, I will never be safe. I hide my wet trousers and pants in a pile of dirty washing in the corner of my room and put my nightdress back on again. I can hear the monster moving about downstairs now, still sobbing. I pull the covers up over my head. The door is open but I can close it. If I close it, I will be safe. For a moment, it resists but I push it with all my might, inside my head. The strip of yellow light shrinks, narrows. One last effort and the light is gone. The abyss has closed. Blackness surrounds me and I surrender to it gratefully. I am safe now. I sleep.

Chapter Thirty One

I sat there on the floor, my legs stretched out in front of me, floppy as a rag doll. The light gradually faded from the sky and the room became darker; the air inside gradually thickening until I couldn’t see my hands lying limp in my lap. I wasn’t aware of much, really; just the gradual darkening of the room, the draining of the light, the quiet rasp of my breathing.

I became aware of a figure standing in the doorway.

“What’s going on?” said Matt.

The sound of his voice roused me. I managed to move my head up, wincing. For a moment, I thought I wouldn’t be able to speak, that my voice would have been lost completely.

“Why are you sitting here in the dark?”

I dropped my eyes to the floor again. “I don’t know,” I said. I cleared my throat. “I think it’s because I’ve gone mad. Again.”

Matt didn’t say anything. I listened to the swoop and hiss and thud of my blood, pulsing inside me. My temples felt as if they were shut in a vice that was slowly closing. “Mad,” I said, once more.

I was aware of Matt moving towards me. Dimly, I felt his hands under my armpits, pulling me up gently.

“Up you come, Maudie...”

I was on the sofa. There was a rustling at the side of the room and then a warm bloom of light. I recoiled, blinking. Matt had drawn the curtains more firmly and switched on one of the table lamps. He stood in front of me, looking down on me with a slight frown, looking very tall and dark in his tweed jacket.

“What’s going on?” he said.

I managed to look up at him. Strangely, I felt like laughing. There was no Jessica. There never had been. I should have known, I thought, I should have known. All the signs were there.

“I’ve gone mad,” I said, once more.

Matt sat down next to me, quite lightly, as if he were about to spring off the sofa at any moment. I scare him, I thought. He put his hands out to my shoulders and then drew them back.

“Maudie, darling,” he said. “Tell me what’s been going on.”

I felt a warm, breaking wave of relief. I was going to tell him, finally, at last – I was going to tell him everything I should have told him from the beginning; Jessica, what had really happened in Cornwall, my hopes and doubts and fears - everything. I’d kept the door shut for so long; I’d kept that memory locked away, my ten-year-old mind trying to protect me from the awful truth. But I’d always known, hadn’t I? Because the door was in my head and I carried it around with me. The constant fear I’d felt in the presence of my father, the nervous breakdown, the drinking... all a direct consequence of the door in my mind, and what lay behind it.

Matt was watching my face, very carefully. I raised my eyes to his. “Angus killed Jessica,” I said.

He said nothing. He blinked once, twice. “What?” he said.

“You heard me,” I said. “Angus killed Jessica. My father killed her. In Cornwall, when we were both ten.”

He was silent for a long moment. “What do you mean?” he said eventually.

“I mean what I just said. Angus killed Jessica.”

“But-” he licked his lips and tried again. “What do you mean, he killed her? He really killed her? How do you know?”

“I saw him.”

“You saw him?” He put his hands out to my shoulders again and drew them back, again. “How could you have seen him?”

“When I went downstairs to meet Jessica. She was already there in the cottage. I saw him do it but I – I made myself forget it, I repressed it–”

“You forgot it?” He looked sceptical. “How could you just forget something like that?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know how I did it, but I did. It was like I had a room in my head and the memory went there, and I shut the door on it.”

Matt had been facing me but he slowly turned away. He was staring at the floor but then he looked back sharply. “Are you sure?” he demanded. “Are you sure you’re not just...”

“What?”

“Well-”

“I’m not making it up, if that’s what you mean,” I said. I didn’t speak sharply. I couldn’t summon up any kind of emotion.

He looked in my face again and he must have seen something to convince him. His face contracted a little.

“Why?” he said.

I closed my eyes. “I don’t know,” I said. “I couldn’t hear what they were saying before it – before it happened. Perhaps Jessica was – oh, I don’t know – threatening him over his affair with her mother. Oh yes–” I paused as Matt looked up sharply, “-he was having an affair with her mother. Perhaps he just went mad for a moment.” I gave a small laugh which was half a sob. “It runs in the family, don’t you know? Both sides, it seems.”

Matt black eyebrows were drawn together in a frown.

“Or perhaps there was another reason,” I said, softly. I said it almost to myself. “Perhaps he was – he–”

I had to stop. Did my fear of the open door go deeper than I remembered? I had a vision of myself as a small child, lying in bed, waiting wide-eyed with fear for the opening of the bedroom door. A vision or a memory? That was something I couldn’t face, an abyss too deep to ever climb out of. That was one door I would never open. I swallowed and thrust the thought away.

Matt hadn’t noticed my recent silence. He looked as though he was thinking ferociously hard. His gaze hadn’t moved from the floor.

“I’ll tell you about what’s been happening,” I said, when I was able to speak again. “I should have told you a lot earlier.”

He looked up at that. “Tell me what, Maudie?” he said.

“I need to tell you about Jessica,” I said. “Or someone I thought was Jessica. But it can’t be, because I know that Jessica is dead. I thought she came back, you see. Perhaps she did. Perhaps she is real, or as real as a ghost can be.”

He was staring at me again. “Maudie–” he said.

I went on, talking over him.

“But she’s not real,” I said. “She’s a figment of my imagination. I should have guessed it from the first – the black coat she wore, the way she just appeared from nowhere. I’d been through it all before. She isn’t Jessica, because Jessica is dead. She’s a hallucination. She’s a symptom of my mental illness.”