Oscar Louden had a bucket full of anxieties, but it was now a much smaller bucket.

Many of the ones that plagued him at his old school had disappeared after just four days. His new class accepted him as a quiet, average student with a bit of a thing for music. Marston’s teachers were encouraging. Best of all, his parents – his father – relented and let him wear the designated uniform. No more blazer. He’d heard them arguing over it.

But the one, the biggest anxiety, would not go away.

He had not heard from the Black Squid in four days. The message would come, he knew it would. He wondered what would have happened if he’d slid off the church tower those few nights ago. Would he have ended up like the kids in wheelchairs he saw at school?

No, of course he wouldn’t. The Black Squid wanted an end to things. But Oscar didn’t. Not anymore. He’d been to some new lessons, subjects they hadn’t offered properly in his old school. The music tech lab was brand new, and the teacher, Mrs Ingham, was nothing like the stroppy, discouraging, ponytailed man hiding in the studio of his old school. Mrs Ingham ran a lunchtime club for people who wanted to make music. And Oscar could make music from all sorts of things. She’d even given him some free software to play with at home on his old PC and he’d already decided to ask his parents for a combined Christmas and birthday present in the form of a new laptop.

There was also a science-fiction reading group run by one of the English teachers, Mr Bilton. Oscar had gone along and heard them discussing Stranger Things.

He loved Stranger Things. Sometimes he felt like he, too, had been stuck in the Upside Down for months. The book they were now reading was The Illustrated Man. Mr Bilton had even lent him a copy.

For the first time in years, perhaps even his life, Oscar Louden liked going to school. And what he did not want was for this to now end. But what he feared was the threat of the Black Squid exposing his weaknesses to his new classmates if he did not comply.

Sometimes, when he thought about it, he broke out in a sweat and had to sit down and pick at the skin on his arms where he’d cut himself before.

He’d been so stupid to play the Black Squid’s game. So, so stupid. Occasionally he let himself believe that changing schools had also somehow pushed the Squid away; he’d not heard from it for days. But that wasn’t how Oscar’s life played out. Not if his past was anything to go by. He knew in his heart that his hopes would turn to fears.

The next day as he walked to school, they did just that with a single alert on his phone.

He glanced at the WhatsApp notification and his stomach dipped as a swooping nausea took hold. He stumbled to a shop doorway and leaned his head down to stop from throwing up. A passer-by saw him and asked if he was OK. He couldn’t speak, only nod weakly. When the waves of nausea had gone, Oscar straightened up, walked on a few yards and stopped again, turning away from the street, wiping tears from his eyes with his knuckles.

His hands were shaking when he held the phone up and pressed the screen to call up the message.

Oscar read and reread the message, his heart hammering. He thought about texting back. Thought that perhaps this was part of the game, to make him think it had ended when it hadn’t. But it ordered him to delete the contact. Delete the Black Squid!

Oscar tapped the screen, the contact, the address book and it was done. He pocketed his phone, walked to the bus stop and began to think about what instrument he could add to the drum track he’d laid down the day before.

Something good and upbeat, he reckoned. Someone from his new school called to him across the street. A girl from his class. Oscar raised his hand and ran across the road to join her. He did so quickly, a smile on his face.

He was too busy smiling to see the figure in the doorway of a shop opposite watching him. Too busy living to notice the figure, wearing a watch cap over a bald head, nod to himself and turn away to walk on towards a postbox.

Hector Shaw didn’t need Martin King’s phone anymore. It had done its job.

At the postbox he deposited a padded envelope addressed to DI Anna Gwynne, c/o Avon and Somerset MCRTF, Portishead, Bristol, and moved on, swiftly, into the belly of the city.