1st December

Shin Sooyoung’s shoes were killing her.

She had bought them on Thursday even though they rubbed her little toes.

They cost her one third of her weekly wage and a good chunk of her deflated ego when she realised she had bought the wrong size.

She’d worn them on Thursday night and again on Friday while making spaghetti for dinner. And she had worn them to work on a Saturday even though she knew she’d be the only person on the eighth floor — quite possibly in the whole building. She’d wanted to break them in for Monday, when she was planning to walk past the glass-walled office of the new accounts manager at least twenty times, because he had a sports car and an incredible face, and the ridiculous high heels made her calves look fabulous.

But now it was those very same heels that she was running in.

Running for her life, she had to assume.

And, as the machine-gun clatter of her brand-new heels rang through the empty stairwell, any consciousness Shin Sooyoung could spare from the terror of being chased by a madman was consumed by the desperate wish she’d come to work in her usual weekend garb of jeans, cardigan and Reeboks.

Because right here, right now, her shoes might mean the difference between life and death...

The man had appeared from across the wide open-plan office. She had looked up from the box file and seen him standing at the lift. It had given her a little jolt of surprise and fear. Ridiculous, really — in broad daylight in the middle of Busan. But she was alone on the eight floor, and that made all the difference.

Still, he seemed to be an ordinary man. Not weird. A delivery guy, most likely — or lost.

“Hi,” she’d said as he began to walk forward at a leisurely pace. “May I help you?”

“No need,” he’d said with a smile. “I’m a friend.”

Confused, she cocked her head to the side and frowned, trying to place where she could have met him before. She couldn’t have, really, because as he had gotten closer and his face became clearer, she realised that this was a face one could never forget. “I’m sorry,” she chuckled in embarrassment. This was a man whose face was carved by God himself and she couldn’t even remember him! “I can’t seem to remember who you are. What’s your name?”

By way of an answer, the strikingly handsome man had put his gloved hand inside his coat and drawn out a knife.

Shin Sooyoung had never been in danger before, but she’d hesitated for only a second before leaping to her feet, grabbing her bag and running.

Because he’d been blocking her way to the lift, she’d headed for the stairs...

Sooyoung didn’t scream. The thought of the sound bouncing endlessly up and down the stairwell only frightened her more — and she was starting not to panic, trying to think. She ran as fast as she dared in those stupid shoes, clutching the black-panelled handrail in case she lost her footing, watching the stairs blur underfoot with eyes that bulged in concentration, desperate not to fall, her long dark hair swinging into , her bag bumping her ribs.

There would be someone on the fourth floor. She had once come halfway up in the lift with a woman who’d complained about working on weekends.

Sooyoung stopped above the fourth-floor landing, panting, gasping. She forced herself to be quiet so she could listen.

She heard nothing. No one.

Maybe he wasn’t coming after her. Maybe he’d never planned to. Maybe he hadn’t even had a knife.

He had though...

She started downstairs again — slowly this time — her knees like jelly and her toes on fire. She pulled open the fire-escape door marked with a giant 4 and took a tentative step on the carpet.

“Hello!”

The lift door slid open. The man was inside. Calm and still, and with a knife — it was a knife! — held casually by his side.

He smiled.

Sooyoung gave a shriek of shock, fear and disbelief. She swung her bag at his head, hitting him a glancing blow, showering him with assorted bag-junk, seeing him flinch a