For the last month she has been the same: a strikingly beautiful redhead, her fiery ringlets offset against delicate ivory skin. Originally, she was an African woman, voluptuous and beautiful, and then a pretty diminutive blonde, wearing a school uniform.

Janey always arrives on the scene as the man raises the hammer above his head. His back is to her, but he knows that she is there as he nonchalantly brings the hammer down on the girl’s skull; then he pauses, before slowly turning round. He looks straight at Janey, a flicker of sorrow quickly disappearing to be replaced by a creeping grin. That’s when she starts screaming.

I never hear the scream. I only wake as Paula instinctively leaps out of bed to run to her daughter . She doesn’t really sleep any more, just inhabits a fragile area between waking and unconsciousness, waiting for Janey’s cry.

At the breakfast table Matthew is the only person speaking. He can’t understand why Janey never remembers the man’s face; she always sees him, when he turns around, his coat spattered with the girl’s blood. Janey says that he stares at her for seconds; his eyes are sad, but his mouth is smiling. She doesn’t need to run; he poses no physical threat to her, but something in his face appals her, makes her scream herself awake, and then he’s lost forever, until the next time.

Matthew chatters on while Janey stares quietly at her breakfast. Paula and I occasionally give the boy a half-hearted warning to leave his sister alone; but the truth is that we are as intrigued as he is. We’re all tired of this, and we feel guilty that we’re tired of it. She’s our daughter, but she’s becoming a stranger to us.

Paula and I have been arguing a lot; she seems to resent me being around the house. As for our sex life: it was already a rare occasion before all of this started, but now it’s dead in the water. But it’s Matthew who has suffered the most. We’ve been neglecting him, tied up in our own troubles and Janey’s condition.

The doctor says that it is all linked to puberty, and has perhaps been exacerbated by the murders of the local women. He says that the violation of these young women, represents, to Janey, the changes that are going on in her own body. Psychobabble.

Matthew finally gets bored and walks sulkily into the living room. He is not allowed to talk about the bedwetting that always accompanies the dreams - none of us are. An explosion of voices shatters the silence, as he switches on the television.

The dreams and the bedwetting had already turned our once exuberant daughter into an introverted waif, capable of little more than monosyllabic mumbles when forced to communicate; but since her dreams seemingly became prophetic, first with the death of the West Indian stripper and then the killing, last month, of one of the girls at Janey’s own school, she has become totally withdrawn.

Paula and I have tried to convince Janey that it’s just a coincidence - the resemblance of the victims to the girls in her dreams - but she has become afraid of sleep now. There is genuine panic in her eyes when tiredness takes her over and she realises that she must surrender herself to her bed. She imagines that she is causing the deaths.

She has dropped all of her old friends, or they have written her off; and Miranda has taken over.

Miranda is a thirteen year old anti-Christ; a follower of the Marilyn Manson school of taste and fashion. She swans around in black velvet dresses that smell of mothballs; the only visible flesh is a pair of ghostly hands, sporting black nail polish. Miranda is a wannabe weirdo, but my daughter, with her mousy brown hair, metal-rimmed spectacles and sensible jumpers, is the real deal; and Miranda has attached herself to Janey, like a limpet, determined to drain some of that weirdness (which people like Miranda call “mystique”) off for herself. I don’t like the girl, don’t want her in my house; and this has caused further arguments with Paula; she’s says that Janey needs a friend, and that if we ban the daughter of Satan we’ll push our own daughter further away.

Matthew is calling gleefully from the living room, and Janey is out of her chair like a shot. When Paula and I arrive at the television the children are both staring at the screen, Matthew’s face beaming with excitement, whilst his sister hovers beside him like a ghost.

I am not surprised to see the photograph of the redhead. She was a twenty-two year old nurse. They fished her out of the canal last night - she’d been dead for about two days, and was so badly mutilated that they had to rely on her dental records to identify her.

Janey and I exchange a brief look before she runs sobbing from the room.

“Maybe her dreams do mean something,” I say.

“Don’t be ridiculous, David,” Paula snaps and leaves the room.

I hear her footsteps on the stairs and then her muffled voice above us trying to calm Janey.

“Dad,” Matthew’s voice is small, trembling. “You don’t think Janey killed those women do you?”

I look into the boy’s frightened face. “No, Matty, of course not.”

We let the children stay off school, and mid-afternoon Miranda arrives. Paula welcomes the girl at the front door with an enthusiasm that she hasn’t shown towards me for years.

“Shouldn’t you be in school?” I say as the smell of mothballs sweeps across the kitchen, but the witch ignores me and carries on her way up to Janey’s room.

Paula’s eyes cut into me like steel.

“At least Miranda is there for Janey,” she says, and storms out of the kitchen before I can reply.

The newspaper is spread open on the table. There aren’t many career opportunities for a forty-three-year-old man who finds himself unceremoniously dumped after twenty-six years loyal service to the same firm. Loyalty is a one-way street, it seems. Even the girl who pursued me like a bloodhound through school, when I could have had any woman I wanted - the girl who thought the sun rose in my eyes - can now hardly bear to look me in the face.

I have circled two of the least degrading so-called jobs: one for a warehouse assistant, another for a night time security guard. I won’t call either of them, I never do.

I close the newspaper and the girl’s face is staring up at me again. It’s the same photo from the television news - an image of her taken on holiday: frozen in time. The background is sandy, warm and golden in contrast to her pale snow-white skin; maybe she is in Greece. There is a disembodied male hand on her shoulder, the rest of him cut out of the photograph; a bit part actor in this girl’s tragedy. The principal player, when he is caught, shall merit more attention.

I feel a wave of loneliness and go upstairs to see Matthew. His bedroom is at the end of the landing, and as I pass Janey’s door I hear them, whispering in what sounds like tongues. I knock softly on the door.

“Go away.” This is Miranda.

Suddenly filled with extreme hatred for this girl, I push the door open roughly and walk into the room.

“Get out, Matt…” Miranda’s voice trails off as both girls turn to face me.

They are sat either side of the Ouija board.

“Dad!” Janey’s voice is impetuous and embarrassed, almost normal. For moment I think that I am a normal father having a normal run in with his normal daughter. But what they are doing is not normal.

“How dare you bring that thing into my house,” I say to Miranda.

“We were just trying to contact the souls of the dead women,” she replies, as if this explanation is in some way acceptable.

“We spoke to her - the last one - she knew him, she knew him,” she continues.

All normality seems to be spinning out of control.

“Out,” is the only word that I can manage.

The girl’s whitewashed face becomes flushed and tears glisten on her eyes, threatening to spring forth. So she is human, after all.

It is only then that I notice Janey. Her grey eyes, so like Paula’s, staring at me with disgust.

Miranda leaps to her feet and runs from the room. Janey rises and slowly follows her friend out, her eyes biting accusingly into me the whole time.

My legs give way as habitual black dots appear in front of my eyes. I lower myself onto the bed, and put my head between my knees.

I’m still there when Matthew appears at the bedroom door.

“Dad?”

“It’s okay, Matthew.”

“Are you angry?”

“Not with you.”

“With Janey?”

“No.”

But I am angry with her, angry with Paula, angry with that little slut and her Ouija board; angry with them all for making me feel worthless in my own home.

“Do you need one of your pills, Dad?”

The boy’s love is unwavering. I must devote more time to him; when all of this is over, perhaps.

“No, I’m all right now, Matty. Where’s your mother.”

“She went out to find Janey.”

I suddenly feel very old.

“Why don’t you go and watch some telly downstairs? I’ll be down in a while.”

I watch his soft, frightened eyes disappear slowly behind the doorframe, and then listen to his quiet footsteps as he pads down the stairs.

I stay in Janey’s room, sitting on her bed. The glass from the Ouija board is settled on the letter D. My eyes are fixed on it as the light slowly disappears and the room becomes swamped in the greyness of evening.

The sound of the front door slamming shakes me from my reverie, and I slowly ease myself off the bed and make my way downstairs.

When I arrive Paula is slamming cupboards in the kitchen. She does not look at me as I enter.

“You could have at least fixed Matthew’s tea,” she says.

“Is Janey with you?”

“No, David. I don’t know where our daughter is.”

“Maybe I’ll go and have a look for her. Apologise.”

She does not reply, and I make my way upstairs.

In the bathroom mirror I touch up my hair with the clippers. I keep it shorn now, to camouflage the bald areas. A couple of days’ worth of growth has made me look tired and old; I shave it off. The visage underneath is a young forty-three, I think. I have the bearing of a man much younger than myself. I take a blood pressure tablet from each of the four colour-coded bottles, and make my way into the bedroom where I slip into a pair of 501s, an old Cure t-shirt, and white Donnay trainers.

I make my way downstairs and take my jean jacket out of the coat cupboard.

“See you later.” But there is no reply.

I wait by the open front door for a while before quietly stepping out into the cool April night. I don’t look for Janey, but make my way down to The Nag’s Head; the one place where people are ever happy to see me. Even this modest pleasure is offensive to Paula nowadays, despite my newly acquired ability to make a few drinks last a whole evening.

The warm air steams up my glasses as I walk into the main bar. Victor, the landlord, walks over.

“What’ll it be, David, Guinness?”

I smile painfully at my own predictability and perch myself on a stool at the end of the bar. It is Thursday night; I always come here on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. When my drink arrives I move from the stool to one at the other end of the bar, and then I think better of it and move into the snug. I don’t recognise anybody in here, and then I remember that it’s where the students hang out. I move back into the main bar and sit back on my stool.

I down the Guinness within a quarter hour and Victor looks at me with mock horror and takes my glass.

“Another?” he asks with his hand already on the pump.

“No, thanks.” I leap from the stool. “I’ve got somewhere I need to be.”

I make my way out. I’ll search for Janey a while, and then maybe I’ll find a new pub.

Across the street, her figure barely visible amongst the shadows, I see Miranda. But the hair is slightly too short, the shoulders hunched against the wind, rather than upright in their usual state of defiance.

My disappointment is hanging over me like a black cloud before I’ve had time to register it. She’ll do. I cling to the hope that it’s her; the wicked little bitch might have cut her hair - you never know.

My hand instinctively moves to an inside pocket that doesn’t exist. I have not come prepared. I look down at my jeans and trainers; the clothes are all wrong - everything is wrong. But that’s what being spontaneous is all about, boyo.

I look up and she’s disappeared. I run across the street and duck down the next alley, but I still can’t see her; she must have come this way. Panic is rising in my chest; I blink the black dots away, and start to jog along the alley. I can see my breath in front of me; hear my own blood in my ears. Then she’s there, still dragging her feet along the pavement; how did she get so far so quickly? My toe hits something and I bend to pick it up. Half a house brick. I cram it into a side pocket of the jean jacket and continue after the girl, never taking my eyes off her now.

We come out of the alley and onto a main road, so I have to drop back a little, but soon she turns into another quieter road. We’re heading dangerously close to our house. Maybe it is Miranda; on her way over to apologise to her best friend’s father for being disrespectful. It doesn’t matter; I have to act now or I’ll find myself on my own doorstep. I pray that this girl knows about the short cut at the back of the houses. She does. We move into the back alley and I make my move.

The first blow is merely to stun; I need them to be conscious, aware of what’s happening. With the hammer it takes merely a flick of the wrist, but now I totally misjudge it. The brick glances off the back of her head, and she stumbles forward into the wall, but she is still standing. I am stunned for a millisecond expecting her to scream, but she doesn’t. She just rubs the back of her head confusedly, staggering like a drunk, her back still to me. I raise the brick high above my head; I need to use more force, but how much? More than all the others I want this one to know her fate.

I’m still holding the brick above my head, when she turns around, and I see her face illuminated. Fresh dye stains the edges of her forehead, and black eyeliner and lipstick, painted over a white mask, make her look ghoulish under the orange cast of the streetlamp. But there is no mistaking those grey eyes, so full of disgust and disappointment; and now satiated with the smugness of vindication. I try to blink the black dots away, but she does not move - just keeps staring. Her trembling lip is curled in a half smile. I can hear the blood racing inside of me; my hands are sweating and my mouth is dry.

She has become a stranger.