Dr Artaud has spent decades listening to other people; he is not listening to Pace, now. He doesn’t have to. He continues to talk, like he is on one of his rants that can be seen in the manifesto he wrote that sits in the pocket in front of his knees.

‘Look out of the window. What do you see?’

Pace looks. It’s rhetorical. Artaud doesn’t want a discussion, he wants to talk to somebody.

‘Take a closer look. I can see eight people on this side of the road and seven of them are overweight. Five of them are probably obese. We’ve become lazy. Waiting around for things to happen for us rather than going out and making something happen. Everything is deliverable or downloadable. We don’t even have to turn the page of a book anymore. People don’t have bookcases.’

‘What’s your point?’

Artaud continues without acknowledging the question.

‘It’s easier. Things are so much easier. Yet everyone is so unhappy. Psychiatry is a booming business in the current landscape. We are needed more than funeral directors. More people are depressed than they are dying. It’s ridiculous.’

Detective Sergeant Pace doesn’t even need to be here for this. He’s a chauffeur at best. All part of the great Artaudian plan to confess and go to prison as the greatest killer of all time. He’ll probably end up being protected so he doesn’t get beaten to death like Jeffery Dahmer. Or he’ll be transferred to Broadmoor, where he’ll spend the remainder of his days in isolation reading all the books he never got around to while he was busy duping people into offing themselves.

‘We don’t need these people. They are not offering anything. You soon see that getting rid of them makes no difference to anybody. They’re nobodies.’

And it continues. On and on for the next twenty minutes like some kind of mobile TED talk about skimming the scum off the top of the population consommé, so that what is left is clear and pure.

Dr Artaud is so wrapped up in himself and his achievement that he doesn’t notice the car is moving away from London, that they have not arrived at the police station he has visited in the past.

And Pace continues to drive and drift in and out of the conversation. He hears the doctor mention a host of other serial killers from around the world and cults and Usain Bolt and he realises that the psycho is reiterating all the things he has written down in his future bestselling memoir.

Then he snaps back into focus when Artaud says, ‘So it looks as though I will have to be number two hundred and fifty-five.’

‘I’m sorry, what?’

‘It has to end with me, Detective. I am the only one left from The People of Choice. It dies when I die.’

‘There are tens of thousands of followers that would happily carry on your work, I’m sure. I’ve seen what they say.’