The door to the cottage was open, but without any sign of a forced entry. He stepped lightly down the overgrown garden path to the front door, and called out, just loud enough for anyone inside to hear him. He waited a minute, but only silence came.

He stepped over the sill onto the rich paisley carpet, mottled with damp patches and frayed edges, and walked down the short hallway, glancing left into a tired looking bedroom, with mouldy woodchip wallpaper, kitsch paintings and sun-bleached photographs of children. Moving into the kitchen he opened the cupboards, finding a few tins and jars, enough to make a meal or two if you weren’t being picky.

With a tin of peaches and a spoon out a drawer he returned to the sitting room, perching on a dusty, moth-eaten sofa, surrounded by hideous china ornaments. He ate the peaches methodically, ignoring the leathery corpse of the old woman in the armchair. He couldn’t sleep here, that was for certain, but he could rest a while until darkness returned.