‘I wrote them, then posted them, or left them in the house. I made sure my articles were taunting, insulting, personal, so it wasn’t a surprise when the killer singled me out.’

‘But why? What was the point of sending them?’

‘I needed a reason for us to come here. As he got closer – and more threatening – well, we had to flee. To run away to this remote, lonely place. Where the stress – the fear – could easily set off a disastrous psychological breakdown in a vulnerable man.’

He let out a low moan. ‘You killed those people. Why?’

‘I have to, Tom.’

‘And the crucifixes? Why them?’

‘There have been other killings,’ she said. ‘In the past. I didn’t want anyone to link them, so I came up with the crucifixes. It was a nice touch. Dramatic.’

‘It was all you?’ he said. He could hardly get his words out. ‘You did all of it?’

‘Yes, Tom. I pulled all the strings. Quite brilliant, no?’

It was the first time he’d seen any emotion in her eyes, and what he saw made him feel sick.

He saw pride.

He didn’t understand any of this, but there was no time to process any of it. He had to get out of this boat and get his limbs working so he could get away from her, from this monster.

But he couldn’t move. He was trapped in his own body.

‘Who are you?’ he said. ‘Who the hell are you?’

‘You really want to know?’ She shrugged. ‘I guess at this point there’s no harm in telling you.’

Perth, Australia, May 2013

Andrea

Andrea Petersen sat at the kitchen table, a ham sandwich in front of her. She was hungry; she’d been for a long swim that morning and hadn’t eaten breakfast.

It was not the only thing she was hungry for.

Six times now she had killed. After the first, opportunistic, one, five times she had left her waitressing job and cruised the streets of Perth looking for a victim.

Someone alone, on foot, in a quiet area. There weren’t many, at two o’clock in the morning.

But there were some.

She thought back to the first one. That was the best: all her life she had felt an emptiness inside that nothing could fill, but she had never known what it was. And then she had seen the girl, pale and thin and staggering drunkenly as she walked, and she had stopped and opened the door, beckoned her into the car.

Even at that point she had not fully known what she was going to do. She had not planned to kill anyone because she did not truly understand that was what she needed.

At least consciously. Somewhere deep in her brain she knew.