I didn’t hear that exactly, the way I can hear Jack, but I’m pretty sure that’s what was going through his mind.

He’d kept his promise. Just as I’d kept mine. But now that he’d left Eleanor, was she still safe?

We were nearing Stirling. I could see the castle lit up on its crag. I thought again how much I liked the golden glow of the Great Hall.

‘We’re nearly home,’ I told a snoring Jack.

I wondered if Eleanor had already called the detective. I hoped she had.

We’re sailing past the entrance to Rowan Cottage. If Eleanor did call the detective, then there’s likely to be a police car there by now, but I’m not ready for the police yet.

He turns left where I tell him, and I point to the house, clothed in darkness.

‘Very nice,’ he says admiringly. ‘Is anyone home?’

‘No. Jack’s dead,’ I remind him. ‘Aren’t you, Jack?’ I call into the back seat.

He gives a little laugh at my madness, confident now in his power over me. I smile as he releases his seat belt. He doesn’t see the knife I take from my pocket. He is too busy thinking of the dark empty house we’re about to enter, and what will happen there.

I reach over and, for a brief moment, he believes I am about to fondle him.

‘You haven’t forgotten,’ he says with a smile.

‘No,’ I say.

My touch in his groin becomes steel. Stabbing and grinding. Now the true madness takes me. The madness of remembering what he did to me. What he did to Mary. He is caught completely off guard. Just as I was as a little girl when he forced his thick fingers inside me.

Now Jack joins me in my madness. Screaming words of encouragement from the back. I have never heard him so elated.

‘Again, girl, again,’ he screams.

I obey him. Blood spouts to meet my face. Hot and tasting of copper.

He has his big hands round my neck now, hoping to choke the life out of me. But I am a mad woman and I cannot be stopped.

66

McNab saw the flashing blue lights as he approached the Raploch roundabout and knew instinctively that the story had met its conclusion at McCreadie’s.

Had Karen directed him there? Or had Jackson thought the nearby woods might be Karen’s final resting place?

Turning left into the road behind the King’s Garden, McNab drew in behind the line of police cars. The stately row of villas alongside was a blaze of lights, the neighbours keen to discover what had taken place outside or maybe inside the home of the famous crime novelist, J. D. Smart.

What a story this was going to make.

There was no cynicism in McNab’s thoughts, just relief. According to McCreadie’s brief call, Karen was alive and Jackson dead. That’s all he needed to know for the moment.

Emerging from his vehicle, he was met by a familiar figure.