The thought cut off as Mr Stevens’ hand touched Tim’s arm. Slowly, Tim looked away from the gate and back at his father.

‘I don’t want you to worry,’ said Mr Stevens. ‘You didn’t do anything wrong. The fact is this is just the start of your training, and it’ll get easier the more we practise.’

Tim nodded because he didn’t know what else to do. He didn’t want to look at that cat again, so he kept his eyes on his father’s face.

‘You’ll get used to it,’ Mr Stevens smiled. ‘I promise.’

Far up in the blue sky above them, the sun peeked out from behind its cloud. The light lit up the garden and reflected off Mr Stevens’ glasses, which flashed like two rectangular discs.

7

Tim thought about the cat as he finished packing up his rucksack. Or rather, he thought about the cats. Had it been seven or eight of them in the end? Or more than that? Tim couldn’t remember. He didn’t really want to remember.

He could picture Mr Talbot’s tabby clear as day because that had been the first, and he remembered the ginger stray they’d cornered in the alleyway between Charlotte Street and Hemingway Street, because that was the first one he’d done without his dad’s help. His father had been smiling after that, really smiling, and despite the fact that Tim had felt like he wanted to throw up the whole time he’d been doing it he actually felt a strange, distant sense of pride when his dad ruffled his hair after they were finished.

He’d never ruffled Tim’s hair before.

‘Your mother doesn’t think you’re like me,’ Mr Stevens had grinned. ‘But I think she may be wrong about that.’

Sometimes after they’d killed a cat they’d leave it where they found it, but every now and then they’d cut bits off it or send the body back to its owner. Mr Stevens said it would throw people off the scent, because they’d link mutilation to a teenager with mental issues. He always made sure they left gaps between training sessions, too, and he drove them out to different parts of Yeovil so they wouldn’t have to go back to the same places twice.

One day in April, Tim had been on his way to school when he’d caught sight of the local paper on a stand outside the newsagent’s. The whole front page had been dedicated to Yeovil’s ‘cat serial killer’. Despite the anxiety he felt when looking at that headline and the heavy sense of dread and guilt that had been following him around for the last few months, Tim couldn’t deny the small pinprick of excitement that went shooting through him. It was a secret he and his dad shared, after all. Just theirs.