‘I have to get out.’ He shook his arms, as if Mary had been stuck on them. ‘I have to get out,’ he said, and backed away.

29

She put the Sat Nav on because she couldn’t do it on her own, even though she’d driven this route at least twice a day for the last thirty years.

—At the end of the road, turn left…

When was the moment? she thought. When did I make the choice that ended here? Was it when I wanked thinking about Macdowall?

—At the roundabout, take the second exit, Renfield…

Was it when I did a home visit to McKinley on my own? Which one? The first with the doll, or the second with the pen drive? She wasn’t supposed to do home visits to sex offenders on her own, for reasons she now understood, but there was never anyone available to come with her. If she’d waited around till someone could, she’d have been in trouble way before now.

—At the roundabout, take the third exit, Renfield…

Small decisions, all of them, but one of them set things off.

—In two hundred metres, turn right, Mason Court…

As she turned, she spotted Jimmy McKinley’s bungalow. The front door was open. Paedo and Beast had been spray-painted on the pebbledash and door, and at least one window was broken. He’d fled, obviously. Underground now, with no supervision whatsoever. Mary had made him more dangerous.

—In two hundred metres, turn left, Grange Road…

Thank God she had the meeting in ten minutes: to be in a room with qualified listeners, to be comforted, have things clarified, decisions made. She couldn’t leave the job now, not with Roddie unemployed. She couldn’t take any more sick leave because she was stage four now, probably, which meant something very bad. Her flexitime had been swallowed again, she had no holidays owing, and no money to buy extra leave. She had to fight to stay in this place. She had to find a way to cope. She must not let anything set her off again.

—You have reached your destination.