My hands are clasped at my windpipe, my nails digging into the soft flesh there as if it will help to get more oxygen into my bloodstream, as if it will stop my throat from closing up completely. An attempt to stop myself from dying.

He opens the door to the shelf where I store it and turns to look at me, shaking his head, his skin loose with shock. ‘Where, Lauren? It’s not there! Where is it?’ His eyes bore into me. I can’t speak, can’t help him. I can’t breathe. Everything drifting away from me. My vision attenuating. My world gradually coming to a stop.

‘Is this what you’re after?’ Her voice is nauseatingly soft and sweet, her timbre slow and mocking.

Alice sits rigidly, the EpiPen clasped between her hands, her bony fingers gripping it tightly. She is smiling. Fucking smiling! And I am here struggling to breathe, my body slowly shutting down as it becomes deprived of oxygen, my throat swelling and closing until it snaps shut and I am unable to get any air in there at all.

‘Alice?’ I can hear Dad’s voice. An echo in my head. A disembodied sound coming from somewhere in the room. ‘The EpiPen. Can I have it, please?’

My knees hit the floor with a crack, my legs giving way under me.

My stomach roils, my guts churn and swirl. I feel it coming, travelling up my throat, thick, viscous fluid trying to escape, my body trying to purge itself of the toxins in there.

I listen to the silence, am still aware enough to detect Dad’s shock, to sense his deteriorating mood and growing horror as it dawns on him what is happening here, what is happening to me. Does he know what Alice is doing? What she has already done?

‘The food? Oh my God, the food!’ His voice swirls around me, the air in the room shifting as he panics and thrashes about. ‘What the fuck have I done? What the hell was in that food?’

I try to listen, to hear his words. I want to tell him who she is, that we need to call the police but nothing comes out. I can say the words in my head but my tongue is a thick carpet in my mouth, glued and set in place. I want to feel Dad’s arms around me, to hear him say that everything is going to be all right but feel only my fear, my growing terror that tells me that this is it, the final moment of my life, that I am going to die. I’m frightened. Terrified, actually. But then something happens. A coldness sets in. I am in a tunnel, distanced from everything and everybody. Suddenly, I feel nothing, hear nothing, a silence settling far inside my head as my vision mists and fades and the darkness begins its cold descent.

42PETER

He doesn’t understand. Or maybe he does. Lauren tried to tell him. She tried on so many occasions and he just couldn’t see it. He was blind to her words, her nuanced ways. His heart is pounding, his head buzzing as he stares at Alice. His Alice. The woman he thought he knew. The stranger before him. He doesn’t know her. He doesn’t know her at all. She continues holding the EpiPen. And she is smiling. Smiling! Lauren is lying on the floor, clutching at her throat, gasping for breath. She’s dying. Sweet Jesus, his daughter is actually dying.

‘Alice? The EpiPen! I need the fucking EpiPen!’

Without moving a muscle, she drops it at his feet, her body rigid, her face frozen into a grimace. Or is it a smile? It’s too difficult to tell. He can’t seem to think straight, his brain a fraught mess of terror and dread, confusion muddying his thinking.

With hands that are slippery with sweat, fingers clumsy and hot, he picks it up and tears open the packet then pulls out the syringe, holding it aloft before jabbing it into Lauren’s leg with force. He winces, can feel the heat from her body, the slight squirm from her torso as the injection takes hold, pumping adrenaline around her system, doing its damnedest to keep her alive.

He kneels beside her, gently sweeping her hair out of her eyes, and places his hand at the nape of her neck before turning her onto her side into the recovery position, pushing her sideways. And then he prays. He prays and begs and pleads and offers up his life for hers.

His heart thumps while he waits, attempting to hold back the tears that threaten to flow, blinking and swallowing, hoping somebody up there is listening as he implores them to save her, telling them they have suffered enough. No more. Please God, no more.

‘Come on, Lauren. Come on. Wake up. Wake up!’ He turns to Alice, his features frozen, rigid with terror. ‘Call an ambulance. Please, Alice, do it now!’

She doesn’t move, sitting instead in the same position, angular and unmoving, watching, waiting. Assessing, impassive. Stony cold.

‘Alice! Call 999. Call a fucking ambulance!’

Again, no movement. And then another smile. A fucking smile! The room tilts. He can’t breathe. He is wheezing now, holding Lauren, stroking her hair, rocking her, willing her to open her eyes and smile at him, telling him everything is going to be just fine.

‘No,’ she says quietly, a murmur from between her thin pursed lips. ‘No emergency services.’

A bullet ricochets around his head, bouncing off his skull, shattering his thoughts. ‘What? What the hell are you talking about? She’s dying! Can’t you see that my daughter is fucking dying here?’

He can’t leave her to get his phone. Alice will kill her. She will kneel down beside his daughter and end her life. He knows it for sure.

There’s a sound, a low murmur. Barely noticeable, more like a rasp, before it becomes louder. Lauren’s body convulses. Her limbs shift and move. Her eyes open a fraction. Then a sickening roar as she empties her guts over and over, the effort of it causing her to pant and cry. Vomit spills out around them, a pool of sticky bile covering the floor, spreading and pooling.

Peter hauls her up, the top half of her body resting against his, her head bent forward as she is sick again and again, glutinous strands of saliva hanging from her mouth, a groan emanating from the back of her throat.

A stray clump of hair sits in front of her eyes. He pulls it away, gently rubbing at her back, cooing at her that everything is going to be okay, that she is safe now. She shudders and slumps against him. He touches her back, his fingers caressing the nodules of her spine. He is able to feel her breathing, the slow pulsing of her body and almost cries out loud with relief, a rock-sized lump lodging itself in his throat.

He can’t bring himself to look at Alice. He doesn’t want to try and fathom what is going through her head, what thoughts are festering there.

‘Dangerous…’ Lauren’s voice is a whisper, a hoarse, guttural moan, and he has to lean closer to be able to hear what she is saying.

‘What is it, sweetheart? You need to rest up now. Focus on your breathing; that’s the important thing.’ The room is unfeasibly hot, sweat coating his back, standing out on his forehead, a thin crescent of pearls around his hairline and blooming under his armpits even though he is shivering and trembling, his flesh cold and clammy.

‘She’s dangerous. Police. Call the police.’ Another whisper, her words slurred, almost unintelligible. Almost. But not completely.

He turns, looks at Alice who sits, watching them intently, never moving, her features locked into position as she evaluates the situation. Assessing them, monitoring them like lab specimens.

‘Alice, what the fuck is going on? What is wrong with you?’

A shrug. A non-committal countenance, her pale face expressionless, unresponsive. She sighs, lowers her shoulders. Shakes her head dismissively.

He speaks again, more forcefully this time, anger, exasperation, desperation in his tone. ‘Alice. Why didn’t you help us? And why did you have Lauren’s EpiPen?’

Her voice is crisp, almost a bark, but clear and precise as she gives her reply, the words she utters a cold knife that twists in his guts. ‘Because I could.’

‘Because you could what, Alice? You’re not making any sense.’ He wants her to have a reason, a good reason, because the alternative is too grisly, too terrible to bear.

‘Because I could keep it and watch you struggle. That’s why I had it.’ She stands up, strides around them, her tiny frame taking on gargantuan proportions, her feet clipping on the wooden floor like a crack of thunder. ‘I knew where it was kept. I think perhaps you told me, Peter, and so I saw an opportunity and I took it. I’m not sure what else you want me to say.’

‘She could have died! For fuck’s sake, Alice, my daughter could have died while you sat there and watched. Not only did you watch it all happen; you fucking smirked!’ A rage builds. He wants to stand up, to unfold his crumpled body and tell her what he thinks of her and stupid, murderous little game but knows that he can’t leave Lauren here unattended. So instead, he stares up at her, his eyes narrowed. Tiny slits of hatred and despair.

‘Who are you, Alice? Who the fuck are you, really?’

A yelp of laughter followed by a prolonged silence. ‘You don’t know? You really don’t know?’

‘No, I really, really don’t know. Why don’t you tell me?’ He thinks that perhaps he does know but doesn’t want to admit it to himself, is too scared that admitting it will unearth his buried secrets.

Lauren murmurs something, her words garbled. Incomprehensible. She attempts to sit up, her arms flailing, the effects of the anaphylactic shock still battering her system, leaving her weakened, defenceless and exhausted.

‘Shh.’ Peter strokes her hair, pulls her closer to him, thinking he can protect her against this woman, this individual who is now a stranger to him. What a fool he has been. There is no fool like an old fool and he is the biggest of them all. He thought he knew her. She has been in his bed and was firmly entrenched in his heart but she is in fact a total stranger to him. An imposter in their house, in their lives. What was he thinking? What the hell was he thinking? ‘Just take it easy. Let your body rest now.’ He murmurs into Lauren’s ear, strokes her hair, pulls her even closer to him to shield her from the threat that Alice poses to her. To them both. His eyes have been opened. He’s under no illusions as to how dangerous this woman is. This Alice lady. This psychopath. She would have sat and watched his daughter choke to death and not broken a sweat.

He cranes his neck, staring up at Alice, who is parading around them, a predator stalking its next kill. Her usual soft features have morphed into something more sinister, something unrecognisable, her dark eyes full of fire, her skin stretched over the bones of her face like a death mask. Peter sucks in his breath, holds it there, releases it in a burning rush. The look he sees on her face will stay with him, haunting him for an age.

‘I think you should leave now. Lauren and I need some time alone and you need to go.’

‘Oh Christ. You still haven’t worked it out, have you? Peter, Peter, Peter, you are so desperately and worryingly naïve. You have the mind of a child – so quick to trust people, to let them into your life without knowing anything about them.’ Her voice is a rasp, the sound of somebody unhinged and unpredictable. Somebody teetering on the brink.

His breathing is shallow. He tries to clear his mind, to think clearly. Rationally. He cooked the food. It was nut-free. Alice took it upstairs to Lauren.

‘You put something in Lauren’s food.’

Her slow clapping prickles his skin, his scalp shrinking against his skull.