‘And Lisa didn’t know who I was when I invited her to the Easyexit chatroom. But she very quickly opened up her heart to me. In retrospect I ought to have known that she was lying. Her stories became increasingly far-fetched. To begin with, she made only vague mention of abuse, then she told me she was having sex with an older man, and finally that her mother was forcing her to. I began to doubt her, but when she sent me the video I believed her again and so I booked a passage for her and her mother to clear the matter up.’

So that was the reason, Martin thought.

That’s why she was so flustered when Diesel rang and said how the video had been staged.

‘I didn’t twig that Lisa was lying to me. I knew nothing of how obsessed and unhappy she was. If Julia Stiller had forced her daughter to have sex with that Tom she would have deserved to die.’

Martin laughed sarcastically. ‘And after Naomi you were in practice.’

‘I corrected my mistake in time.’

‘We almost died!’

Martin recalled the scene in Lisa’s cabin. By the irony of destiny, Elena had told the truth when she said she was Querky. She could have passed Lisa’s test and said her chatroom nickname. The only reason Elena had hesitated was that it would have blown her cover.

‘And you don’t think you’re mad, Elena?’ Martin asked. ‘You’re absolutely potty!’

The petrol mower had now sprung into life on the front lawn of the neighbouring house. Martin wondered whether it was drowning out other sounds. Sounds that might reveal Elena’s true intentions.

‘Where are you?’ he asked her.

As expected, Elena didn’t respond to this, instead asking a question of her own: ‘Are you still in contact with Lisa’s mother?’

‘What? Yes, why?’ Martin had spoken to Julia Stiller once. She’d just been visiting her daughter on the closed ward of the psychiatric unit and wanted to thank him again for having saved her daughter’s life. It must have been the tenth time she’d done so. He might well be the only person she could talk to about the sluggish progress in Lisa’s treatment.

‘Tell Julia I’ll make amends for my mistake,’ Elena said. She sounded as if she were about to hang up.

‘Make amends for your mistake? Are you out of your mind? You’re a murderer. You can’t make amends for what you’ve done.’

Martin aimed his pistol at the television, imagining she was standing before him.

‘You’ll see,’ Elena retorted.

‘I’ll see you,’ Martin said, sounding dead calm. ‘And then I’ll kill you.’

He could virtually see her shake her well-coiffed hair.

‘No you won’t,’ she said.

He frowned angrily. ‘You know what I’m capable of when I set my mind to something,’ he threatened.