He knew John had chosen this place. Probably thought it meant something, it being Eros.

The fountain was located near the middle of the park – a good fifteen-minute walk from the car park on Mossley Hill Drive. It was pitch black when he parked up, the clock on the dashboard blinking almost midnight. Fear hit him, as he thought about the time it had taken him to get back.

Mark got out of the car and started walking, unsure what he would actually find at the fountain. The thought of John just waiting there for him seemed a stretch, but he had been wrong about him before. Taken in by his crying act, the way he’d dismissed him as just a little boy in over his head.

Mark had been wrong. So wrong.

It took him a while to find it, coming to it from a different way than he was used to. In the dark, everything looked slightly different also. The paths merged into one, nothing to differentiate one from the other. The trees around him, stripped of their leaves as autumn took hold. Underfoot, the constant swish of walking through them was the only sound he could hear.

Then, he heard something else.

It was soft at first, as if it were only his imagination, then it became more prominent.

The thought made him nervous, his heart beating against his chest as he grew closer to the sounds. Every step felt like a mistake. A betrayal to himself. He could run away and be safe, but that wasn’t happening.

Always running towards the danger, not away from it.

He kept moving forwards. It was too late to turn back now.

Mark rounded a final corner, seeing dim light in the distance. A single beam of light. The chanting became clearer now, driven to him with force on a gust of wind.

‘One… two… three.’

The numbers being recited. A male’s voice encouraging, disparaging. A female, stilted and slow. Treading over the words as if they were hot coals.

Mark broke out into a run. Within half a minute he was standing at the edge of the stone path that surrounded the fountain.

Took in what he was seeing.

Natasha, a rope around her neck, around her body. Her hands tied in front of her. All interlocked. She was walking slowly around the base of the fountain, the other end of the rope being held by him.

John Redwood.

‘Thought you could stop us,’ he said, talking to Natasha. ‘You never had a chance. Now it’s the last level.’

Mark moved closer, his feet scraping on the gravel path. John slowly turned to greet him, his sorry look of yesterday replaced with emptiness. A smile slowly crawled across his face.

Mark had done exactly what he’d expected him to do.