Soon after that, Finlay’s face had been plastered over every newspaper in Scotland, identified only by his tattoos after his headless body had been found. Better for Fergus that way. No chance of anyone finding out about his purchase. From then on, he’d begun selecting his own loved ones through careful research. He couldn’t remember how many there’d been. Or why none of them had stayed with him. Those facts were slipperier than oil in his conscious mind. No one stayed with him for long.

He was tempted to crawl into the cavity himself, to hide in the darkness and wait for the end, but that would take too long. He was done with waiting. If he didn’t end things himself, they might never end.

He stood up. The thumping of his heart was the painful beating of an animal trying to escape a cage. How could he come back to this house now? The memories needed eradicating. He no longer needed bricks and mortar, after all. The bones, the ghosts, the grief – they should all become dust with him. Perhaps this house had been the problem all along. It had been an anchor for his body to return to. A reason to keep living. Without a connection to his past, perhaps his soul could finally be free.

There was a solution in the kitchen, he realised. Stacks of newspaper. A can of fuel kept for the lawnmower. Matches in the cupboard. It would be as if none of his past lives had ever happened. No past, no present, no future. Just peace. All he had to do was pack up the girl and the woman first – he paused and frowned – their names would come back to him soon. Then he would be able to move on at last.

‘Goodbye,’ Fergus muttered as he crawled through the debris in the hallway then stepped over the shards of wood that had been the door to the flat.

Silence.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Connie sat alone in the incident room and stared at the phone while randomly clicking the refresh button on the secure email address she’d been given for responses to the alert. It had gone out four hours earlier.

In that time, a media alert had been circulated for the car that had been seen at Farzana’s house, a vague image of their suspect had been released to the press, and an all-ports warning had been sent out across the UK. In addition, there was a whole room of people doing nothing but checking CCTV footage across the city between 1 a.m. and 6 a.m. There were few stones left unturned, and a palpable sense of desperation. Every ringing phone was grabbed. Every possible new detail immediately added to the evidence boards, but nothing was helping. Baarda had called a couple of times to check in, and Connie had gone back over the information already gathered. Nothing new. She could have screamed.