For some seconds – it may be as few as three, it may be as many as twenty – I simply stare at the corpse, and although I can remember nothing of the previous night, I know without a doubt that there is no way I am responsible for what's happened here. You see, I recognize this girl, even without her head.

Her name was Leah Torness, and I was in love with her.

I can't believe this is happening. Yesterday, she was a smiling, chatty young woman with everything to live for. Today, she is a butchered corpse, as pale and lifeless as an alabaster statue. My head spins with the confusion of what I'm witnessing. I feel like I have a terrible hangover, and the nausea rises through me in bitter, debilitating waves. I've seen sudden death before, on the battlefield. It's always a terrifying sight, but this is worse. Far worse. On the battlefield, you are psyched up for death; as a soldier you are constantly preparing for it. But I have been a civilian now for three years, and the memories of blood and cordite are fading. And as for the woman lying in front of me, she never fought in any battle, never put herself in the firing line. She was a twenty-five-year-old nanny enjoying life in the big city. She was innocent. Why kill her?

Why?

I can't look at her any more. If I do, I think I might break down. It's an obscene sight and yet, somehow, brutally compelling. But I tear my gaze away and look round the room, trying to find something familiar to hang on to, something that may explain how I got here. Apart from the bed, which is drenched in Leah's blood, the room is neatly decorated and furnished in a distinctly feminine but old-fashioned style with cheap reprints of still-life and classical oil paintings dotting the pastel-coloured walls. The furniture – a huge double wardrobe, a chest of drawers, and a dressing table with oval mirror – is all antique pine and matching. It reminds me of the inside of a kid's doll's house. Except that in the corner there's a TV on a metallic black stand with a DVD player in the space beneath. A folded cardboard sign sits on top of the DVD player and it grabs my attention immediately. It's handwritten in black marker pen, the words in neat block capitals. Still shaking, I take a couple of steps towards it.