“In the end, Freya and I argued before I had a chance to do anything. Like I said before, she seemed generally angry, and she started shouting, driving crazily. So I forced her to pull over and swap seats with me before she killed us both.” His own turn of phrase lurched through him.

He made himself continue.

“I pretended I was going to take her back to school but I drove out of town. When she realized we were going the wrong way she started screaming and trying to get out of the car. She grabbed the wheel a few times. I only just managed to stay in control.”

He remembered how his mind had blanked. He was no longer thinking about what he’d been paid to do, no longer deliberating about whether he could go through with it, or how to execute the plan. He was just trying to keep the car from crashing. It had been a relief, in a way, to be able to focus on something so immediate.

“At one point she was fighting me for the wheel, making the car swerve. We were on a quiet road by this point but we could easily have hit a tree, and if anything had come in the opposite direction . . . I was shouting at her to stop but she wouldn’t let go, and I swear I thought, I’ve just got to keep us alive and then I’ll take her home. I knew things had gone too far.”

Chris put his elbows on the table and buried his face in his hands. His palms were burning hot.

I really was going to bring her home.

He realized he was speaking to Vicky in his head, saying the thing he most wanted her to know.

“She just wouldn’t let go of the wheel,” he said into his palms.

“Could you speak up, please?”

He lifted his head and looked at the camera. “She wouldn’t let go so I shoved her away. Her head hit the window . . .” He shuddered, the sickening crack reverberating in his mind. “It knocked her unconscious. As I was looking at her, trying to see if she was okay, I realized we were about to hit a road sign. I swerved . . . but because she was unconscious and not wearing a seat belt, she slumped forward and her head smacked the dashboard . . .”

Chris began to splutter, as if choking. The air in his lungs felt noxious.

After that second blow to the head, he’d known she was gone. But all he’d felt able to do was keep driving. He’d driven like a robot as Freya had crumpled down, blood oozing from her head. The sight that would never leave him.