The story of how this came to be published is a tale in itself. Colette de Curzon wrote it in 1949 when she was 22, but because she didn’t know anything about the publishing world, she put away in a folder until her daughter found it 67 years later. She lived long enough to see it published as a chapbook by Nightjar Press in 2017 before passing away in March the following year.

Nightjar Press specialise in publishing stories that editor Nicholas Royle describes as having “something of the uncanny or the gothic or the dark, strange, weird, wonderful” about them. ‘Paymon’s Trio’ is a perfect example: a musician buys a mysterious black book from a second-hand stall and finds tucked into it a piece of music that may or may not be demonic. The music is for a trio – a pianist, a violinist and a cellist – and there is a growing sense of doom as the narrator gathers two friends and they settle to play the three parts.

First published by Nightjar Press, 2017; republished in Best British Short Stories, edited by Nicholas Royle, Salt, 2018