You look so delicate, so fragile and elegant. My butterfly. I gave you those wings. I held you inside that chrysalis, that protective cocoon, to stop you from feeding on that poison. And now look at what you’ve become. I was so proud of you. Was.

I created you. I thought I was doing the right thing. So did Dr Frankenstein. Did you know that was actually the doctor’s name, and not the monster? But these days everyone thinks Frankenstein was the monster, not the doctor. Isn’t it strange how people can get so muddled up as to which one is the real monster?

Of course, the doctor and the monster both die. The doctor dies first, running away from the monster he created. But not before he agrees to go back home and face his creation.

The only person who could have cared for the monster was the good doctor. He was the only one who understood him, who knew what made him tick. I must say, I sympathise entirely. And now we face our own final chapter.

53

I can’t speak.

Tom takes my phone and ends the call.

‘In the car. Now,’ he says, showing me a large knife.

I could run, but he’d catch me immediately. I look behind me, but there’s no sign of the police officer McKenna told me they’d sent. Before I have a chance to decide what to do next, Tom grabs hold of me, opens the car door and shoves me inside. Within a couple of seconds he’s in the driver’s seat, has started the engine and we’re on the move.

He pulls out onto the main road and quickly builds up speed, steering with one hand as he switches my phone off with the other and puts it in his jacket pocket.

‘Where are we going?’ I ask.

‘Just for a little chat.’

‘I don’t want to chat. I want to go home. I want to be on my own.’

‘You will be.’

Tom drives out of town and out onto a rural lane. I’ve been down here once or twice before, but it’s not an area I know well. As we get further and further out, there are fewer and fewer cars, until Tom pulls over into a small car park by some woodland.

‘Wait there,’ he says. ‘I’ll come round and let you out.’

‘Where are we going?’ I ask when he opens the door. ‘I don’t want to get out.’

‘Do as you’re told.’

‘What are you going to do?’

He ignores me. I get out of the car, swallow, then try to force out the words I’ve been wanting to ask. ‘What happened to Jess?’

‘You know what happened to Jess. She’s gone.’

The coldness of his words alongside the chill winter air sends an icy blast right through me, and I shove my hands in my cardigan pockets.

‘Did you kill her?’ I ask.

I feel something sharp press into the small of my back, and I know in an instant it’s a knife.