How much of my memory have I lost? Am I going to be one of those poor bastards whose whole past's disappeared on them, who can't even remember his own name? But no, I know exactly who I am. My name is Tyler. I'm a car salesman by trade, a high-class one too. I own a BMW franchise. I was in the army for a long time. I am a veteran of Northern Ireland, the first Gulf War, Bosnia and Sierra Leone. And I am in a lot of trouble. This much I know immediately.

I flick my eyes from the lump to the clock radio and back again. The LCD display tells me it's 9.51 a.m. Very late for me. I'm usually an early riser. I switch on the bedside lamp, the brightness making me squint sharply.

My mouth is bone dry and I feel like shit. I really don't want to look under the covers, but I know I'm going to have to.

Clambering unsteadily out of the bed, I reach over with hands that I notice are shaking a little and touch the top of the sheets, recoiling against the dampness, wondering what it is under there, then pull them back in one swift movement.

Oh, Jesus.

Retching, gasping for breath, I stumble backwards, banging into the wall. I can't believe what I'm seeing. The shock is blinding, terrifying…

A naked young woman with very pale skin lies stiff and lifeless on her back. Her body is lithe and athletic, if a little on the skinny side. Underneath a silver belly-button ring, the faded tattoo of a butterfly sits on her waxed skin, next to a thin, perfectly straight strip of very short dark pubic hair. Her fingernails are varnished a sky blue colour, and she has rings with Celtic symbols on the middle and index fingers of her right hand.

But what scares and revolts me the most is the simple, inescapable fact that her head is missing. The neck is a jagged, raw stump where the head has been either hacked or sawn off, and the blood surrounds it like a huge crimson halo. It is the only obvious injury to the body.