Jax had only been a baby when this guy had gone on his killing spree, but everyone still knew about him. Australia’s most notorious serial killer, the Serpent had left Ivan Milat trailing in his wake and was surpassed statistically only by the madman Martin Bryant. After being found guilty of thirty-three murders, he’d been sentenced to life without parole and had since been locked away for eighteen years. In that time he’d completely covered himself in ink. Jax could see that every inch of the skin exposed by his white short-sleeved hospital gown was marked. Even the soles of his feet.

Father Martin was sitting by the Serpent’s side. Last rites?

It had to be some sort of medical emergency. The Serpent was kept in Supermax, which was a jail within a jail at Goulburn. Everyone knew that. The only reason he would be in Long Bay was to be treated in the clinic, which was fully equipped, unlike the one at Goulburn, which was only had only a basic medical facility.

The Serpent was staring at him. He wanted to keep walking – but he couldn’t. He was frozen stiff. He couldn’t stop looking at the Serpent’s eyes. For a moment he thought he could see the killer’s victims, trapped in there. Those thirty-three people. But he knew it was just his mind playing tricks; the Serpent had not really taken their souls, as he claimed, by eating their brains. Still, those eyes. They were chilling. Suddenly the chains rattled and the Serpent launched himself towards Jax, as far as the restraints would allow. Jax jumped, at once forgetting what he had been thinking about, and everything else.

Jax wondered which of the criminal’s alter egos the priest was talking to. Was it the genius professor or the crazy killer?

A NURSE called Laura cleaned Jax’s wounds when he reached one of the treatment rooms. Blue-eyed, smiling, and smelling like sunshine and strawberries, she made him forget about the Serpent – at least for a little while. She reminded him a little of someone he loved. He didn’t even mind when she used a cotton tip to clean the worst of the gunk from his closed eyelids. Pain tore through him, but he just gritted his teeth.

‘You’re going to need an IV,’ she said to him. ‘We’re going to have to pump you full of antibiotics. You’ll need more than tablets for this.’

‘How long does the Serpent have left?’ Jax asked.

‘Left?’ Laura said. ‘Oh no, he isn’t dying. He’s just down here getting stitched up. He took to himself with a knife. Again. He is sent here every time he injures himself, which is a lot. You get a look at all those scars? He’s sick in the head. Does it for the attention, I reckon . . .’

‘So why the priest?’ Jax asked. ‘Father Martin, right?’