I feel my breathing start to get more and more shallow as my heart begins to race.

‘I… I don’t understand.’

‘Neither did I. Not for a long time. But the more and more I look into it, the more it makes sense. Don’t forget, it’s my job to deal with things like this. I see disturbed people all the time. People who live in alternate realities because they can’t handle the true one.’

This is too much. Too much to take in. Too much to believe. Twenty-four hours ago, everything was normal. Everyone was happy. Now I’m in Cornwall, speaking to someone who’s trying to tell me Tom is some sort of lying psychopath, while he’s on the other side of the world, a couple of hours away from thinking I’ve dropped off the face of the earth.

‘I’m not sure,’ I tell her. ‘I need time.’

‘You might not have time,’ Jess says. ‘Listen, you came here for a reason. You didn’t hang around. You knew when you woke up this morning that something wasn’t right. You didn’t sit on it. You drove straight down here and went to a lot of effort to track me down. Deep down, you know the truth. Trust your gut, Grace. The alternative really doesn’t bear thinking about.

Trust your gut. She’s starting to sound like Tom. Telling me to stand on my own two feet. Do what I feel is right. Stop listening to others. But I have to. This time I have to listen to others. I know I need to listen to Jess.

‘Grace, think about it. I know the things I’ve told you have rung a lot of bells. Calling you Butterfly. Taking you off social media.’

‘How do you know about that?’ I ask her.

‘That’s how I tried to find you first of all. I thought it was a bit weird you had no social media presence at all. And when I told you about Tom trying to get me to come off social media, your face dropped. Then I knew he’d done the same to you, too.’

‘How did you find me? In the end, I mean.’

‘I googled your name and saw that you worked for the events company. There was an old, archived LinkedIn page. I looked on the company’s website and found your picture and email address. I knew you’d look just like me. Like her.’

‘Her?’

‘Erin. I was only half joking earlier when I said Tom has a type. That’s not the full truth. The truth is he doesn’t just want a woman to look like Erin. He wants them to be her.’

44

‘Butterfly was the name he gave to Erin,’ Jess tells me. ‘I’ve been doing a lot of digging on Tom. I’ve spoken to his old friends. His family. I know I should leave well alone, but I needed to know. I needed to uncover everything, so I could warn people whose life he comes into.’

This all sounds weird to me. Obsessive, almost. ‘Why not just use your job? Have him arrested?’