He wanted to lie on the table. Close his eyes and sleep, but he knew it would be a long time until he would be able to rest. Perhaps he never would again, now he was unburdening himself. The solicitor beside him had gone still, seemingly wanting to hear the rest of the story himself. When he’d met him earlier, he had been advised to say nothing. To answer ‘no comment’ to all of their questions, while they came up with a statement for the situation which would be put before him. He hadn’t engaged the lawyer in much conversation.

He’d been too busy preparing.

Remembering.

‘I’ll tell you what you need to know, in the order I want to tell you, or I don’t say another word. I know you want to keep control of this interview, but that’s not how this will go. Understand?’

He would have enjoyed the look of wounded pride that flashed across Hicks’s face in any other environment, but for now, he could only try to keep the little food he’d eaten that morning from making a reappearance. No room for error. No room to show nerves.

Another moment passed and then Hicks asked him to continue at his own pace.

‘I killed Stacey Green after Steven Hallet. Found her a different way. She was trying to be found, I think. This time I didn’t make the same mistakes I did with Steven. It was cleaner. I did it differently, but you know the story, or you’ll find out soon enough. In fact, you’ll know how I killed all eight of them if you look properly. That’s if you want to know. I can tell you about them all. How they failed. After Stacey, there was Andrew Hill. Then, Melissa Carmichael…’

‘We want to hear about all of them, but first, we do need to talk about the woman you were found with,’ DS Victoria Lee said, the younger of the pair speaking for the first time since the recording had begun. ‘We want to hear your story.’

‘There is no story,’ he replied, leaning back in the plastic chair, wondering if the detectives had ever sat opposite a serial killer before. Whether they would be able to tell a difference between him or anyone else. ‘Just a list of names. People who have lost. You know, it’s amazing what people will believe when they have nothing else. If your life is empty, you’re easy to… manipulate.’

A frown, a pause. A look of incredulity from the detective who had probably never interviewed someone like him. It passed quickly.

‘Okay, let’s move forward a little. You were found in the early hours of today, in a lock-up garage. Can you tell us what you were doing there?’