Whose body he would soon be joining. He shook the thought away. He had to concentrate, although it was nearly impossible to do so. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing, or the flat, emotionless way she spoke. What she was saying was momentous, but it was as though she was reading a memo outlining a dry legal argument.

He tried to piece it together.

Her real name was Andrea Petersen, but she had killed a woman called Brenda, before doing the same to Alice Barnes, and assuming her identity.

In the meantime, she had killed her own parents, and the real Alice’s boyfriend and his mum, as well as God knew how many other people. Six in Perth, and four in Warrington at least, but there would be other victims, scattered around the places she had travelled to as a journalist, searching for stories.

He felt sick and dizzy. His whole world had been pulled from under him, but he would have to deal with all that later.

For now he had only one focus. Getting out of here. Getting Jo out of here.

That, though, was not as simple as it sounded. He needed time for whatever she had given him to wear off, and then he could maybe move again. She would have to believe he was still drugged, so it was crucial he didn’t move.

Which would make it hard to test whether he could or not.

‘What are you going to do?’ he said.

She held up a vial and a needle. ‘Heroin.’

‘You’re going to give me heroin?’

She nodded. ‘At least you’ll die happy.’

‘Why would you give me heroin?’

‘It’s the last act of a desperate man. Inject himself, drift out onto the water – in the boat he asked his wife to buy, Eric will confirm that story – his baby in his arms, and slip over the side to his death, leaving behind a grieving, pitiful wife.’

‘You don’t have to do this,’ he said. ‘If you want rid of me and Jo you can have that. I’ll take her. You don’t have to see us ever again. You’ve started again before. You can do it now.’

She shook her head. ‘No. If I wanted to do that, I could have. I could have left you any time, gone somewhere new, but I didn’t want to. And it isn’t that easy. I thought about it, of course. But I’d have to leave everything behind, and I’d never find another Alice Barnes. She was perfect: on the cusp of a new life, no family, lots of money. I could simply slip into her life. But now? To find someone my age in that position? Almost impossible.’ She gave a cold laugh. ‘So I have no choice, Tom. And I like my life. But I don’t want you – or that baby – to be part of it.’