The journey into darkness began with the move, although for Nancy North moving felt more like an ending. The wreckage of the past lay behind her and she couldn’t see into the future
or imagine what it would be.

‘We’ll come back,’ she said determinedly, wrapping glasses in newspaper to keep them safe, placing them into the large box at her feet.

Felix smiled across at her.

‘Of course,’ he said.

‘And soon.’

‘Soon,’ he echoed, but Nancy knew he was just humouring her.

He taped his box shut and labelled it with a marker pen. Nancy watched him. Her packing was impatient and slapdash; his was calm and methodical.

They were moving from a flat that she loved into a smaller and cheaper one she hadn’t seen, and from a patch of East London where she knew every shop, every alley, to an area she had never set foot in. She’d had to look at a map to find out where it was. West London: it was travelling to a different continent.

‘Harlesden,’ she said. ‘What’s it like then?’

Felix straightened up and pushed his fingers through his blonde hair. He looked tired, and Nancy felt a familiar stab of guilt. She had done that to him. All of this was her fault, and he hadn’t complained once.

‘Interesting,’ he answered. ‘Diverse. I think you’ll like it.’

It sounded like he was reading from a guidebook. There was an anxious, almost pleading note in his voice. Nancy crossed the room and put her arms around him.

‘It’ll be an adventure. While we plan what comes next,’ she said, and kissed him.

An adventure. If she allowed herself to think about it, which she tried not to, it felt more like a failure and a humiliating retreat. Eleven months ago, she had opened a tiny restaurant in Stoke Newington, the fulfilment of a dream she had had since she was a teenager. It had taken most of her twenties to save up the money for the deposit, working long hours in shitty jobs while friends became lawyers and teachers and management consultants, whatever they were, or travelled for months at a time, posting photos of themselves from beaches and jungles. At last, she managed to get a bank loan with scary repayments, and then had to find the premises, to equip it, to get the right person to be waiter and bar tender. A year and a half ago, just before she turned thirty-two, she had opened the restaurant. She had never worked so hard or with such intensity: in the kitchen before most people’s day began, home very late, and even then, she would lie in bed and think about the tasks that hadn’t been completed and the things that she could do better. It was like being an accountant and an artist at the same time. She even dreamed about menus. She barely saw Felix in those feverish months, or friends, unless they came to eat in the restaurant. She never took days off or went on holiday. But she was happy, if happiness means joyful immersion in a task. She was also, she realised now when it was too late, scared that it was too good to be true and couldn’t last.

It couldn’t.

Four months ago, on a Sunday in the hot middle of July when she was making raspberry sorbet, a voice had whispered to her, ‘It’s coming.’

Nancy had looked around. The kitchen was empty.

She pushed an escaped lock of hair back inside her cap and returned to her task.

‘It’s coming,’ said the voice again, nasty, menacing, making her heart beat faster.

There was still no one there. Perhaps she had been talking to herself. She often talked to herself, giving herself instructions, admonitions. ‘Get out of the bath, Nancy North,’ she would say, or she would tell herself where she was putting her keys so that she wouldn’t forget them. She talked in her sleep as well. Felix would gently shake her awake and tell her she had been shouting out, asking for help.

That sinister voice was the last thing she remembered. Everything that happened after was a blur: yells and screams, leering faces and pinching fingers, a hurtling sense of terror and she knew she had to get away but there was no place to hide, no safety anywhere. She did have a few clear and shaming memories. One was of urgently taking her friend Bridie by the arm and making her run, shouting at her all the while to go faster, trying to take her away from danger. When they had at last come to a gasping stop, Bridie had stared at her in such horror that Nancy had crouched on the ground and covered her face with her hands. The other was of Felix crying, his mouth wide open and fat tears streaming down his cheeks, into his stubble. She had never seen him cry before, nor since. She promised herself she would never make him cry like that again…