It made me who I am. Showed me the way I should live my life. I made sure to explain that to them before they died.

I also learned from them that you have to be careful. You cannot let people know you think of them as nothing but ways and means to get what you want. You have to learn to resemble them. Most of the time a smile and a question and an interested look is all it takes.

It’s ironic: people love me. They think I’m kind and helpful, because that’s what I want them to think. They trust me.

Which is very useful. Once you have earned somebody’s trust it is the easiest thing in the world to abuse it.

Occasionally someone figures it out. My mother did, when she realized what I had done. Poor woman. It broke her heart.

I know what you are, she said, her eyes wide with shock. I’ve known it all along. I just didn’t admit it to myself.

So I was putting her out of her misery, I suppose. It didn’t have to be such a painful death, but there had to be something in it for me, didn’t there?

Anyway, it’s time to give Matt the next piece of the puzzle. It’ll answer a few of his questions, inform him about the situation he’s in, clear some things up.

But it won’t help. Soon he will realize that for every question answered, more have been asked.

But first, the phone needs to be thrown away. The Bridgewater canal – oldest in the country, apparently – will be a fine place for it. No problem to pull over his dirty Land Rover Discovery and get out. The kids are unconscious. Hopefully the dose was correct. Not too strong. Not yet.

Pull the phone battery out, then two splashes as the phone and battery drop into the dark, oily water.

A new phone, booted up.

Type in his number – memorized, of course – and send the message.

Four words.

Four shocking words.

Watch sixty seconds tick by. One turn of the dial for the second hand. Analogue. No Apple Watch or Fitbit. Those things are a pain. Constantly buzzing and beeping. Measuring where you are and reporting it to some server. No, I don’t want that.

Then the rest of the messages, followed by two more splashes.

Better safe than sorry.

Words Matt Westbrook should have paid more attention to.

Matt

Matt looked down at his phone and read the text message.

It was just four words.

Four shocking words.

This is a kidnapping.

He stared at the screen and read them again.

This is a kidnapping.

He slumped on the bench. His legs were shaking. Norman, Keith and Molly, the three people at the centre of his life, the three people he and Annabelle had built everything around, had been kidnapped.