Koppler pulled open the door and waited. Patrick paused. There wasn’t much he could do right now without arresting the psychiatrist and he had no grounds for that. He would leave now and think about what to do.

Once out of the office he turned around. ‘I’d like to talk to you in more—’

Koppler shut the door in his face.

Patrick counted to five in his head, then jogged down the stairs. You haven’t seen the last of me, Doctor Koppler, he thought. He was about to exit onto the street, keen to get home to see Bonnie, when he remembered where he knew the strange smell in Koppler’s office from.

It was the same smell that had clung to Isabel’s clothes.

He turned around and raced straight back up the stairs, determined to ask the psychiatrist some more probing questions. He knew he ought to call for back-up but he wanted to talk to Koppler right now, and get another whiff of that smell, just to make sure.

He reached the top of the stairwell and knocked on the office door.

‘Who is it?’

‘It’s DI Lennon. Please open the door, sir.’

The door swung open and Koppler filled the doorway. The smoky smell was even stronger now. Patrick was about to start talking when he noticed that Koppler had one arm outstretched above his head, an object glinting in his hand. It was the paperweight from the desk. Before he could raise his own arm to protect himself, everything went white, as pain exploded inside his head, and then black.

Chapter 23

Chapter 23
Patrick – Day 4

Patrick didn’t want to open his eyes. The screaming pain in his head and the taste on his tongue – a mix of sand and metal shavings – told him he must have had too many snakebite-and-blacks last night. He remembered dancing to Nine Inch Nails around the tiny dance floor at The Crypt, slime dripping from the ceiling onto his backcombed hair, the heat in the club making him sweat the white foundation from his face, and he’d met this girl called Lucretia, which definitely wasn’t her real name, who had black hair with a white stripe running through it. Through his pulsating headache he tried to remember what she looked like. He couldn’t remember, but he could definitely recall going back to her friend’s bedsit in a taxi and spending a long time trying to unbuckle her enormous boots and peeling his off his own jet black drainpipes before having disappointing sex with her on the sofa. His piercing had alarmed her but she had wanted to take a photo of it. Would she still be asleep? Could he get his clothes back on, remove the film from her camera and escape before she stirred?