He was already planning his next move. He would go to the LSE, where The Secretary often followed the other blonde tart around, and hook up with her there. In the meantime, he’d need a different hat and, perhaps, new sunglasses. He felt in his pockets for money. He had hardly any, as fucking usual. He’d need to force It back out to work. He’d had enough of It whining and bleating and making excuses at home.

In the end he bought two new hats, a baseball cap and a gray woolen beanie to replace the black fleece version he put in a bin at Cambridge Circus. Then he caught the Tube to Holborn.

She wasn’t there. Nor were any students. After searching fruitlessly for a glimpse of red-gold hair, he remembered that today was Easter Monday. The LSE was closed for the bank holiday.

After a couple of hours he returned to Tottenham Court Road, looked for her in the Court and skulked for a while near the entrance to Spearmint Rhino, but could not find her anywhere.

After a run of days when he had been unable to get out and look for her, the disappointment caused him almost physical pain. Agitated, he began walking quiet side streets, hoping that some girl would stroll across his path, any woman at all, it didn’t have to be The Secretary; the knives beneath his jacket would be happy with anything now.

Perhaps she had been so shaken up by his little greetings card that she had resigned. That wasn’t what he wanted at all. He wanted her terrified and off balance, but working for Strike, because she was his means of getting the bastard.

In bitter disappointment, he returned in the early evening to It. He knew he was going to have to remain with It for the next two days and the prospect was draining him of his last vestiges of control. If he could have used It in the way he planned to use The Secretary, it would have been a different matter, a release: he would have hurried home, knives at the ready—but he dared not. He needed It alive and in thrall to him.

Before forty-eight hours had passed, he was ready to explode with rage and violence. On Wednesday evening he told It that he would have to leave early next day to do a job and advised It bluntly that it was time It got back to work too. The resultant whining and mewling wore at him until he became angry. Cowed by his sudden rage, It tried to placate him. It needed him, It wanted him, It was sorry…

He slept apart from It on the pretense of still being angry. This left him free to masturbate, but that left him unsatisfied. What he wanted, what he needed, was contact with female flesh through sharp steel, to feel his dominance as the blood spurted, to hear total submission in her screams, her pleas, her dying gasps and whimpers. Memories of the times when he had done it were no comfort; they merely inflamed his need. He burned to do it again: he wanted The Secretary.