Casey Faraday took a glass of white wine across to the window that looked out over the flagstoned patio. She took one sip of the Pinot Grigiot, then dropped the glass to the floor and screamed. By the time the others reached her Casey was crying hysterically, pointing out through the window.

Sheila grabbed her by the shoulders. ‘Casey, calm down. What’s wrong?’

Andrew Johnson followed the line of Casey’s pointing finger.

Eddie Farrant joined him, mouth open in astonishment, face draining rapidly of color. ‘Oh my God!’

They stared through the window at the patio. Tables and chairs had been overturned and umbrellas lay on their side, rocking gently back and forth in the afternoon breeze. In the center of the patio was Guy Lomax, but only his head, shoulders and right arm were visible; it was as if the rest of him had been swallowed by the patio, as if he had sunk into the flagstones.…

It was what had happened here, and what was about to happen again, that made it obvious this was the start of it all.

There was nothing very special about the house — a medium-sized English suburban semidetached, built some time in the 1930s, complete with bay windows and a stained glass panel depicting sunrays, set in the solid green-painted front door, so that it looked like sunlight captured on grass; nothing much to set it apart from its neighbors. Except for what had happened there.

The tree-lined avenue was the picture of normality; cars parked either side against the neat verges, hedges precisely clipped, a child’s bicycle on a front drive, the sound of an electric mower buzzing like a sun-lazed bee. The house they were visiting looked welcoming, and would have been a pleasant place to spend the afternoon. Except for what was going to happen again.