I squint and it’s him. Paunchy and balding and much older than I expected. Samuel Pulpitt. He’s not a muscly gym coach anymore but an out-of-shape old man.

‘Yeah?’ I call back. ‘Why am I here then?’

‘You don’t think people have been gawking at me, spying on me all the time? I see through you.’

I can’t believe he is standing right here in front of me, less than ten metres away with only a thin strip of road between us.

‘I know who you are!’ I make sure my voice is deep and strong. ‘You’re disgusting, a rapist and a criminal.’

His mouth flaps open and shut, out of breath from walking up his own driveway. Power surges through me.

‘Do your neighbours know that there’s a predator living next door? What do you think they’d do if they knew?’

‘Listen, I went to jail for that. I did my time. It was a lifetime ago.’

‘You ruined lives. Those women will never forget what you did to them.’

‘Oh, you’ve asked them personally, have you? What you’re doing now is equally disgusting, you spoilt little brat!’ He coughs from the effort of insulting me. ‘This is my house, my life, my privacy!’

‘How can you say that?’ I’m outright shouting now, shouting my throat raw. I am a rage bomb, a firework going off, a nuclear mushroom. ‘What you did is unforgivable and you should pay for it for the rest of your—’

Out of nowhere my breath deserts me, my voice trails off. I’m breathing just as hard as he is.

‘Oh, I see.’ Samuel Pulpitt leans harder on the letterbox. He’s wearing a tracksuit with stains down the front. ‘You’re her age, aren’t you? The Mitchell girl. Do you know her? Is that it?’

A shiver runs through my whole body. ‘No.’

‘Is that why you’re so upset?’

I try to move my feet but I’m frozen. ‘You’re wrong. You’re delusional.’

But maybe it’s me that’s delusional. The man in front of me doesn’t fit the police profile at all and he’s not the sinister abducting machine that the media has painted. He’s old and sick and pissed-off.

‘Why don’t you search my house, if you’re so convinced?’ Pulpitt says but my feet have finally come unstuck and I’m not convinced at all.

I run and run, as fast as I can.

When I reach the train station I’m still shaking all over and my shirt is plastered to my back and my throat hurts and my hands hurt and it was not fun being a detective or assassin and I feel grubby all over.