Another blow to the back of my head. The exact same spot as before. Everything sways, narrows sharply, but I just cling on to the thin, fragile thread of consciousness, forcing myself back into the world. He grabs my T-shirt, lifts it away from my back, and I hear the soft hiss of fabric being cut. Which means as well as the gun he also has a knife. Of course he does. He has a fucking knife and I’m naked with my hands tied in front of me in a wood in the middle of nowhere and no one knows I’m here and –

I try to ground myself, slow things down. I’ve two enemies right now: the man behind me, and panic. I can’t defeat the former if the latter takes hold.

‘Knees,’ he says once the T-shirt drops away and I’m shivering hard. I hesitate and feel his grasp on my shoulder. He pushes me down. My knees strike the ground and something scuttles away from me. I listen to it escape into the night.

I smell earth, rotting leaves, my own fear. The black wolf raises its head, nose to the wind.

I glance up at the sky, the immensity of it all striking me for the first time. I was part of this, I think, but soon I won’t be.

Because I know how this is going to end.

Panic hits and questions fly at me: how did I end up here, how did it come to this? Thoughts rush and tumble over each other until it comes, the memory of how it started just days ago with a woman’s scream. I hear it again, the piercing intensity of it, which I now recognize as a signal to stay away. If only I’d realized that at the time.

I’m breathing fast. I feel the black wolf shudder.

‘You don’t have to do this,’ I tell him.

All I get in response is a laugh. And a cold blade against my throat.

A cloud crosses the moon, cutting out the light.

The stars flicker downwards.

Towards the raw, bloodshot dawn.

FOUR DAYS BEFORE

Visiting the graves,

the old dog

leads the way.

Issa

‘I told you to never contact me on this number unless it was absolutely necessary.’

‘Yes, sir, but we may have a situation on our hands.’

‘You mean Marianne Kleine?’

‘I spoke to her father not long after she … she was found. He told me how she had been killed and it reminded me of Koen Muller’s daughter.’

‘I am aware of the similarities. The main thing is, are the police?’