‘What are you talking about? Him?’ She pointed at Finn Blackwell’s body. ‘Do you think I care about him? I don’t. You didn’t make me do anything.’ She cupped Parker’s face with her bloody hand.

‘This is very moving, but if we leave it much longer then none of us are getting out of here,’ Adrian reminded them.

‘He’s right, Abbey, you need to go.’

‘Detective, isn’t there any way you can keep Parker out of prison?’ Abbey pleaded. ‘You saw what he’s been through, you know he isn’t a bad person. He never killed anyone who didn’t deserve it.’

‘That’s not up to him to decide though; we have the law for that,’ Adrian said, aware that he should probably say anything they wanted to hear if he wanted to get out of there alive.

‘The law is impotent when it comes to some people, or worse, apathetic,’ Abbey said.

‘It’s OK, Abbey. We’ll be OK. I’ll confess. You and the baby will be looked after. We have money, you’ll never need anything.’

‘You can’t take the blame for something I have done,’ Abbey said.

‘I will if it means you are both safe. That’s all that matters.’

‘I need you though,’ she pleaded with Parker before turning to Adrian. ‘Can’t he say it was self-defence? This is his home.’

‘What about all the other murders? Even if he promised never to do it again, I couldn’t agree to lying in court for him,’ Adrian said.

‘There’s enough blame to go around here. There is no evidence linking Parker to any of those crime scenes, I know because if there was they would be looking for him, you would have been looking for him – and you weren’t.’

‘Abbey, go now while I cut the detective free. Get away from the house, please!’ Parker kissed her on the lips, blood on both of their faces.

‘Please, hurry,’ she said before rushing from the room.

The flames were reaching the ceiling now. Parker dropped to Adrian’s feet and started to cut the tape.

‘I wish I could let you go again,’ Adrian said. He did, but he knew he couldn’t, regardless of the consequences to himself.

‘I know, Detective.’

‘I’m sorry it turned out this way for you. If only you had never started again. I have no idea how to explain all of this away. I have to take you in.’

‘I’m sorry I put you in this position.’

Adrian watched him as he sliced through his restraints. Knowing that a neighbour might call the fire brigade, knowing that the police might turn up – Parker still stayed to let him go. Adrian couldn’t help feeling that in another life, where Parker wasn’t a brutal murderer, that Adrian would like him. He was a good guy. Except he wasn’t.

‘How do we get out of here?’ Adrian asked, rubbing the parts of his wrists that had been restrained.

He noted that the door he had come in by was engulfed in flames. His clothes clung to him with sweat as the heat intensified. The thick heavy drape of the curtains were lighting up a treat, also ensuring that it was impossible to jump through one of the windows.