‘I wanted to,’ he whispered. ‘In my head I’ve done it many times.’

‘What about your mother?’

‘She lives in Eastbourne,’ he said miserably.

The truth made her want to laugh out loud. Jerry wasn’t dangerous at all. All those stories he told her about the people he killed – his mother, the people at work, the ones who crossed him, the women he followed home – he had made them all up. It was all a fiction.

He was a liar.

Jerry lived in a fantasy world where he was a dangerous hunter, a killer. He desperately wanted the world to be scared of him. But the truth was that he was a total loser.

‘Please,’ he whined. ‘You have to help me.’

She stared in astonishment. ‘Why should I?’

‘Because you’re my friend, because we understand each other, because we’re the sa—’

‘I’m nothing like you,’ she spat. ‘Nothing!’

He flinched in surprise at her outburst.

And then a knock on the front door made them both freeze. They stared at each other for a long moment, until Karin said, ‘Aren’t you going to answer it?’

‘I don’t know who it is.’ He scraped back his chair and went to the window. ‘Nobody ever comes here!’

She had never seen him in a panic like this. In the dull light, his gaunt skin was as yellow as wax. He gingerly pulled the net curtain aside and reared back quickly.

‘They saw me,’ he said, anguish in his voice.

He placed the knife in the sink and went to a drawer and took out a small bunch of keys.

‘Please, I beg you,’ he pleaded with her, and did his best to wipe the tears from his eyes. ‘Don’t say anything.’

Karin watched him unlock the front door, heard voices on the doorstep. Careful not to make a sound, she went to the kitchen door. In the reflection of a mirror on the wall in the hallway, she glimpsed Jerry with two men.

One of them was a tall, fat man in a grey suit and the other wore a police uniform.

‘… And I’m Detective Inspector Peter Carrington,’ said the big man loudly. ‘We’re going door to door in the area. I can tell you, your house isn’t easy to find.’

‘Yes,’ said Jerry, ‘I’m a bit out of the way.’

‘That’s an understatement.’ The detective laughed. ‘Anyway, we’re speaking to people about those teenagers who went missing.’

‘Yes,’ stammered Jerry. ‘I heard about that, it’s a terrible business.’

‘We’re trying to track the movements of a white minibus that was seen being driven in this part of the county… are you okay, sir?’

‘I’m sorry, I’ve been chopping onions!’

‘I always let the wife do that kind of thing,’ the detective said amiably. ‘I’ve no talent for cooking.’