‘You’d killed my monster,’ she said. ‘I felt good.’ She wiped her eyes roughly on a piece of kitchen paper and threw it in the sink. She was angry again. ‘But I felt bad about feeling good because he was dead.’

‘He raped you, Seren. I couldn’t let him get away with that. I’d kill all your monsters for you. I always will. Cos I love you. I am capable of feeling love.’

She shook her head, not looking at me. ‘What about the calls, the silent messages, all the emails you’ve sent me? If you love me so much…’

‘I didn’t send you anything.’

‘What about that letter to the Evening Post about killing that woman in the farm shop? And the letters to the Gazette and the Mercury?’

‘Not me, not me, and what’s the Mercury?’

‘What about my birthday last year and that horrible thing you sent to my office?’

‘What horrible thing?’

‘Oh come on. The… turd in a Tiffany box?’

‘I didn’t send that.’

It dawns on her face, and her eyes search mine. ‘The dead cats?’

I shake my head. ‘I wouldn’t kill cats.’

I tuck into my sandwich and she stands there, hands resting on the island, gun behind the butter tub, thinking things through.

‘No, you wouldn’t, would you?’ she says, more to herself than to me. ‘You didn’t do anything? Send anything to me or Cody this past year?’

I shake my head. ‘I’ve had better things to do than dick about with you, Seren. My stans just messing with you, I expect. It didn’t mean anything.’

She sits down on the stool opposite. ‘Like when you used to set fire to my clothes as a kid. That didn’t “mean” anything, either, did it?’

‘I only did that twice. I was bored.’

‘Stealing my stuff?’

‘You never shared.’

‘Cutting off my hair when I was asleep?’

‘Two times I did that.’

‘Stabbing me with the scissors?’

‘Yeah. All right. I was a bitch to you, whatevs. You’ve shot me in the face and sent me to a morgue. I think you more than got your own back.’

She nods and sort of laughs and looks to the ceiling as though someone up there will help her.

‘I did love you,’ I said. ‘I still do. I don’t kill people I love. I kill for them. And I killed twice for you, if you remember.’

‘Don’t you put Pete McMahon on me.’