How to construct a ghost story. I’m thinking not so much a haunted house, though it’s always fun to have clues in the building, but simply a ghost. Ghosts are often tied to places. You don’t hear of the story where a ghost up sticks and moves house because they’re in need of a better class of victim to haunt. I’m not really after that either, a mobile ghost. I like the notion of the imprisoned soul trapped in a corporeal body for decades; never ageing, never living, but not bound to a specific room.

I’m hunting for images of houses or scenes, trying to capture atmosphere, ambience. I want to smell, touch and almost taste what I’m writing. If I can do that, I know I’m finding the right path.

Autumn had arrived prematurely and the house seemed swathed in a fog of its own making; it puffed out of the windows and swirled around the sills, rising up the walls like a white creeper until it merged with tthe chimneys, releasing itself into the atmosphere.