Nathan wondered where he got the kid from. He was so innocent and pure. He looked like Nathan but was nothing like him. His mother’s influence no doubt. They were still watching Fireman Sam when Grace arrived home.

‘Is it done?’

She nodded. She pulled some sweets from her pocket and gave them to Jake.

‘Go and play with your toys in your room for a while, sweetheart,’ she told him and being the good little boy he was, he skipped off to his bedroom.

Grace sat down on the sofa next to Nathan and he knew she was waiting for an explanation. He could try and blag her, spin her some yarn or other, but part of him wanted to, needed to, tell someone what he’d done. And he owed her the truth this once.

‘I killed Tommy,’ he said, and saying it out loud suddenly made it all seem more real to him. Completely unexpectedly, he broke down in tears, sobbing. He hadn’t cried like that since he was a kid. Why had it affected him like that? Tommy was certainly not the first person he’d killed, and he wouldn’t be the last.

Perhaps he reminded Nathan of the only other real father figure he had in his life? When he was stabbing Tommy over and over, maybe he was imagining someone else.

‘What? You killed him? Tommy? Why, Nathan? Why on earth would you do that?’ She stared at him, wide-eyed and open-mouthed. Her cheeks, usually flushed, were now as pale as the white lilies he would buy her when he was feeling particularly guilty.

‘Because it was either him or me, Grace,’ he sobbed.

‘But you were covered in so much blood!’ She looked at him in horror. ‘What did you do to him? Why are you always so angry at the world?’ She shook her head, unable to comprehend him. How could she? She didn’t have a vicious bone in her body. So, for the first time in Nathan’s life, he tried to explain.

‘Because I love it, Grace. I love hurting people, the power of it, the way it makes me feel.’