Graeme remembers with glee the day three years ago when he discovered that the Pop Bitch – PB – lived in Minstead and worked up at the house. He was boarding a bus in Kingston after a visit to his parole officer, and he saw PB walking to the next bus stop. Nobody else would ever recognise her; she looked completely different these days. But Graeme would have known her anywhere, even with the very short blonde hairstyle. Catherine had made him study so many photos of her that the woman’s features were indelibly imprinted on his mind. Graeme immediately jumped off his bus and followed PB onto hers, sitting so close behind her that he could see the short, fine hairs sticking to the back of PB’s collar – she’d obviously just had it cut. Why was she travelling by bus? Surely someone like her had a car? Maybe it was in for a repair or something.

Graeme sniffed the air in front of him, trying to see if PB was wearing the same perfume as she had when he’d met her last. He could still remember how she’d smelled; before the scent of her piss and fear and blood overpowered everything else.

That bus ride took at least thirty-five minutes, out into the arseend of nowhere in the Surrey Hills, a place Graeme didn’t even know existed. PB – and Graeme – finally alighted somewhere called Minstead House – a massive yellow place, where Graeme stalked her to that stupid shop full of overpriced pottery and other shit that posh people and ignorant tourists threw their money at.

He couldn’t wait to tell Catherine that he had, completely by chance, found Pop Bitch, and that she worked in a shop. It was the biggest stroke of luck he’d ever had.

They gave themselves two years to work out phase two of the plan. Two years to start to put right what had gone so wrong last time.

And now here they are.

In the van, Catherine clips in her seatbelt. ‘How did it go last night?’ she asks.

‘Like clockwork. Everything in place.’ Graeme can’t help the note of pride in his voice. He thinks of the man’s eyes meeting his, his pain and fury and bewilderment. In that moment he almost felt sorry for him, for he was as much of a pawn as Graeme himself was.

‘Good. Knew I could rely on you.’

Graeme smiles, all thoughts of pity forgotten.

‘Let’s get over there now.’

‘Now?’ Graeme has assumed Catherine would want to have a quiet night in first. See the flat, unpack, maybe even go to bed. The thought of Catherine’s warm, pale body in his arms again makes him feel woozy with delight.

‘You’ve got him. What if someone finds him? We need to get her there too, before they notice I’m missing.’