This was Charlie’s upstairs study. I remembered it vaguely from the time I’d come with him for the weekend all those years ago, although the room had been much more cluttered then. Sitting on the desk facing me, arranged in a neat row and draped over a white beach towel, were the severed heads of Louise, Charlie, Crispin, Luke and Marla. All had their eyes open as they stared vacantly into space, and for some reason they didn’t look real to me, or maybe it was because I’d seen so much horror these past thirty-six hours that I’d become inured to it. Instead, I focused on the video camera that was pointing at me from a central position between Crispin’s and Luke’s heads, trying hard not to wonder why it was there, before turning my gaze to an empty chair standing in front of the window. A length of rope with a noose attached hung down above it from a purpose-built metal joist in the ceiling. It took me a few moments to realize that I was secured to a chair myself, with my wrists bound behind my back and two further loops of rope securing my arms to my side.
