‘I can’t be responsible for what our followers are doing, but I blame the police. Why haven’t they made an arrest? Two people have been killed in the most horrible of ways, and no doubt more to come. We wouldn’t stoop so low as to threaten people, but until the murderer comes forward, animals are going to keep dying.’

I made the mistake of reading some of the comments. The detective in charge is Meg Dalton. That useless cow’s a vegetarian, promoted too fast because she’s a woman. Remove Meg Dalton from the case! Put someone competent in charge!

I pictured them sitting at their keyboards, spouting their venom, not caring about the effect it might have, not even thinking of me as a real person. There were no consequences for them. They didn’t have to look me in the eye and justify their behaviour. One thing I vowed – there would be consequences for anyone who killed an animal.

I tried to do a spot of therapy on myself. These arseholes couldn’t hurt me unless I allowed them too. Why should I care what they said about me? I was always so quick to jump to feeling guilty, taking responsibility, but it wasn’t my fault they were killing animals. My mind flipped to Daniel, who also lived with guilt. He was so far from the kind of person anyone would expect me to be interested in. He lived in a grotty caravan, he worked in an abattoir, he appeared to be dependent on opiate painkillers. He’d been done for causing death by dangerous driving, for God’s sake. He was not what one would call a good catch. And yet on some level far deeper than any of that, he was like me. We were the same.

I closed my eyes and saw blood. Remembered that Daniel had started to tell me about his younger brother. I tried phoning him but there was no answer.

Jai wandered into my room, stuffing a pasty into his face. ‘Hey, are you okay?’

‘Yeah, you know. Just an average week. A knife to my throat, a gallon of pig’s blood on my head …’

‘It sounded horrific.’

‘I’m fine, honestly, Jai.’

‘You’ll have seen the online brigade have worked themselves up into a frothing frenzy,’ he said. ‘We’ve got a confirmed serial killer, apparently. An enraged vegan activist picking off meat-industry workers.’

‘God, do you feel nostalgic for the good old days when we could get on with our jobs without all this crap?’

Jai shoved in another mouthful of lard. ‘Sorry. Didn’t get breakfast. But yeah, bring back the days when Enraged of Eldercliffe had to get off his arse, buy stamps, and write to the bloody paper to express his bigoted and unfounded feelings.’