This was a lie. I have never been ugly and, although I am now arguably one of the most selfish people on the planet, I wasn’t as a teenager. Sarah produced, through her tears, some kind of psycho-verbal formula that I didn’t understand, involving sin debt and friendship severance packages. I was too upset to follow the detail, but the gist was clear: I had to end my relationship with Dorian. Fast. And hand him on to Sarah.

All this I did without complaint. Sarah and Dorian went out together for two weeks before she dumped him for a friend of her older brother’s. I decided, after that experience, that the words ‘best friend’ were meaningless; I had no interest in securing myself another one. Ever.

Now, listening to DS Sam Kombothekra tell the woman interviewing him that there are still no leads and police have decided it’s time to appeal to the public for help, I find myself thinking it’s a shame Billy didn’t start his killing spree while I was still at school. He could have identified Sarah Durdy – the worst best friend since records began – and done the world a favour by removing her. I like to think he’d have spared me, once I’d told him the Dorian story.

Better to have no relationships than bad ones: that’s what I tell myself. Which makes it annoying that I’m stuck with Drew. I don’t think I can bring myself to say to my own brother, ‘I never want to see you again.’

I hear the words ‘little white book’ and my memory swings away from Sarah Durdy and towards the more recent past: a large hall, a bar near the door, a stage; the audience sitting at round tables – my least favourite formation. I much prefer rows. Tables make the performer – or at least this performer – feel excluded before she starts. On either side of the stage, glittery silver stars painted on black walls …

A man coming towards me, his hand outstretched …

My breath hardens and sticks in my throat as I listen to DS Sam Kombothekra.

‘In all four instances so far, the victim has been given one of these little white books. This isn’t one of them – it’s a mock-up, but it’s very similar to the real thing. Billy’s four victims each found a small book like this in his or her home, or among his or her possessions, several weeks before the murder occurred in each case.’

A close-up shot of the book in Kombothekra’s hands fills the screen. A blank, white cover. The size is exactly the same.

‘But no words inside,’ I whisper to myself, suddenly lightheaded. If there were no words inside the books given to Billy’s victims then this has nothing to do with me.