At first, you think you’re imagining it. An old house, but new to you, one whose soft grunts and shifts you’re still becoming acclimatised to; of course there’ll be the occasional rumble in the radiators or protest from a floorboard. It’s a big house, a proud Georgian beast of a house, bought with the collective pocket money of more than a million teenagers.
But why would a floorboard creak, without a foot putting pressure on it, at three in the morning, and loud enough to wake you from a deep sleep?
Wide awake now, everything tensed, listening so hard it hurts. Nothing. You switch on the bedside lamp, leap out of bed and lunge for the key in the lock, turn it silently. Thank God for the lock on the door.
Then a soft noise on the other side of the door: half swallow, half gulp.
Then the sight of the slow dip of the door handle as someone turns it…