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‘‘Good,’ I said.’

‘When your father told you your grandmother had died, you said ‘good’?’

‘Yes,’ Edward said. ‘She was an old bat. I couldn’t stand her.’

‘Really? What was so wrong with her?’

‘She was mean and unkind. She never once gave me a birthday or a Christmas present. The only thing she ever gave me, in her own words, was advice. So for my birthday and at Christmas, she would give me a piece of folded paper. No picture on it because she said it would encourage me to be creative if I had to draw my own card. And then inside there would be another slip of paper with some advice on it. But it was never something that made any sense.’

‘What do you mean?’ Kelly said.

‘For example, it would say something like, ‘A deer in a tree is not to be trusted.’’

‘Okay,’ Kelly said. ‘That’s interesting.’

‘Or, ‘When you see two logs floating down a river, it’s the third log that will catch you out.’’

‘Wow,’ Kelly said. ‘That’s profound.’

‘Just as profound now,’ Edward said, ‘as it was when I was seven. I’ve never figured it out, but she always seemed to find it funny to give me these silly slips of paper and expect me to try and work out the meaning. I used to hate going around the house because it smelled bad. She had six pugs, and they all used to sleep on the sofa, so there was never any room to sit down. She had a little step for them to get up and down because pugs’ legs are too short for them to jump up even as far as a sofa seat. And so she would make me sit on a fold-out chair at the end.’

‘That’s too bad,’ Kelly said. ‘Pugs are kind of cute. Didn’t you play with them?’

‘I wasn’t allowed to touch them,’ he said. ‘And do you know what the worst thing was?’

‘No?’

‘I saw one do a poo once on the sofa.’

‘Oh dear,’ Kelly said.

‘And do you know what she did?’ Edward said.

‘No.’

‘She reached over, pressed down the seat, and just watched that poo roll into the gap behind the cushions. And then she let the cushion bounce back up.’

‘That’s horrifying,’ Kelly said.

‘I was too scared to ever sit on that sofa,’ Edward said. ‘I used to have nightmares about how much pug poo might be down the back of it. Like, full-on wake-up-screaming nightmares. Therefore, when she died, I wasn’t sad. And I told my dad this, and he got the hump about it. So that’s why we weren’t talking.’ He sighed, and ran a hand through his hair. Kelly couldn’t help but wonder what it would feel like to touch. ‘However, I am a man of duty towards my family. So when I heard he disappeared, I came back to keep an eye on the business. But if you want me to believe that he’s been kidnapped, you’re going to need to be a lot more convincing.’

‘What,’ Kelly said, ‘if I could convince you?’

‘Come on then,’ Edward said. ‘Let’s hear your reasons. Why don’t you have another Danish, since they’re just going to go to waste?’

‘Thanks,’ Kelly said. ‘Don’t mind if I do.’

‘And is this going to be long enough that I should get some coffees in?’

‘It might well be,’ Kelly said.

Edward stood up and went out. Kelly, mulling over his story, listened to him rattling cups and cutlery in the kitchen for a couple of minutes.

But then, as she turned around, she let out a gasp of horror at the sight of a hideous jack o’ lantern sitting on the counter behind her.

It wasn’t a pumpkin, however, but something much smaller, brown and grey, and its face had been carved into something horrific. There was no space inside for a candle, but someone had smeared red paint over its eyes and in among the jagged teeth of its mouth.

At her scream, Edward reappeared, a wry grin on his face.