Chapters (68)
- Cover
- Dedication
- NOW
- One
- BEFORE
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- NOW
- Twenty-One
- BEFORE
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- NOW
- Thirty-Nine
- BEFORE
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Forty-three
- Forty-Four
- Forty-Five
- Forty-Six
- Forty-Seven
- Forty-Eight
- Forty-Nine
- Fifty
- Fifty-One
- NOW
- Fifty-Two
- Fifty-Three
- Fifty-Four
- Fifty-Five
- AFTER
- Fifty-Six
- Acknowledgements
- About the Author
‘Why don’t you tell us about the woman you were found with,’ DI Hicks said finally, locking eyes with him. He knew it was an attempt to regain control, but it would fail. He’d had them on the back foot from the start. That had been the plan. The game. ‘The young woman. What was her name?’
‘She’s not important right now. If I’m going to tell you everything, I need to start at the beginning.’
‘And when was that?’
He saw the names of the victims as if they were folders in a filing cabinet. Each one filled with facts and figures. ‘Steven Hallet,’ he repeated, thinking of the young man who had been killed first. He closed his eyes, remembering the facts. ‘Twenty-two years old. I killed him at a service station on the M6 in the middle of the night, not far from here actually. I made him play. He was doing… bad things. I killed him because he lost. He was my first.’
There was another shared look between the detectives. He glanced at the solicitor, who was furiously making notes, his handwriting becoming more scrawled the further down the page it went. His hand was shaking every time the pen left the page.
‘You’re saying you killed Steven Hallet?’
It took a few moments, but he could see the pair starting to regain their composure. Making quick decisions without even talking to each other. He knew this could have been a tricky part. That they might have ended the interview there and then and gone outside to regroup. Perhaps pull in other detectives who knew the case better. Instead, they’d obviously decided while he was talking that it was best not to stop him.
That was the first hurdle cleared.
He knew there were bigger hurdles than this one. That they would need to try to explain his very existence. He wasn’t there for that. He hoped it wouldn’t happen.
‘You assert you killed Steven Hallet and… what was it… seven further victims?’
‘Well, yes. Eight is the right number. All told.’
‘And the girl you were found with was number eight?’
He thought for a second, then nodded. ‘Yes, but I need to talk about Steven first.’
‘We’ll get to that.’
He watched DI Hicks clench his jaw, saw the thoughts running through his mind. His need, his desire, to reach across the table and lay his hands on him. The anger danced across the detective’s eyes for a moment, before he remembered his place.
‘The woman you were found with… what was her name?’ More aggressive in tone now.