Je n’ai jamais voulu tomber amoureux de toi. Kate has replayed over and over her time with Rob and she doesn’t believe he did fall in love with her – it’s obvious now that he was incapable of loving her, or anyone. But that doesn’t make it any easier to come to terms with his deception. The cold calculation of it all. His cruel patience. He nurtured her back to health because he coveted her ability to recognise a human face. Nothing more. It wasn’t out of love. Or a shared passion for art. Bex tried to joke that she should be flattered – he desired her for her brain, unusual in a man – but they both know there’s nothing funny about what happened to her and to the others.

Everyone has their darker side, Kate’s aware of that. The face that they hide from the world. Sometimes they might even glimpse it in another, in one of their shadowless doubles that roam this earth, but most people learn not to act on their worst impulses. With Rob it was different. All that talk of doppelgängers, the Rossetti picture, the books – she suspects his fears were genuine, deep-seated, but he used them to blame someone else, to avoid taking responsibility for the evil that lived within him.

Her super-recogniser brain made the spot in the end, once it had healed. That’s the real irony. He nurtured her back to good health, only for her to identify him for who he really was.

‘Want to go for a walk?’ Jake asks, finding her at the end of the garden. ‘I think I saw an otter on the canal this morning. Beautiful place, down towards Crofton. Not far. We could take Stretch and Banger?’

She looks up at him and smiles. Jake is a good man.

‘I’d like that.’

One month later

116

Silas

Strover’s phone rings. It’s her digital forensics friend.

‘I better take this,’ she says to Silas.

They’re in their usual corner of the Parade Room, just back from raiding a nail bar in Swindon Old Town.

‘Sure,’ Silas says, returning to his laptop. He wonders again if there’s anything between Strover and her friend. None of his business. Just like his own personal life is none of hers, although he wouldn’t mind talking about it. Not now that things are looking up. He’s got another counselling session this afternoon with Mel. And Conor’s going round to her place for dinner tonight. She asked if he’d like to join them. He might just do that.

‘Anything interesting?’ he asks casually. Strover has finished her call, but she’s sitting in silence, staring ahead.

‘What if Rob was right?’ she says quietly.

‘About what?’ Silas starts to compose an email to Ward on his laptop.

‘About Gilmour Martin.’