“I don’t know,” she said.

I took another sip of the drink. It was starting to work on me. I have a startlingly low resistance to any kind of drug. I would like it to be because I have a perfectly attuned body, but I think it’s just a weak head. It was getting harder to maintain my feeling of fury, although the fear was still throbbing away somewhere deep inside. But I could feel the alcohol all over my body and outside it as well, making the world seem softer, fuzzier in the golden light of this summer evening right in the middle of north London.

“Did you look after the first one?”

“Zoe? No. I only met her once. Just before… well…”

“And Jennifer?”

“Yes. I spent time with her.”

“What were they like? Were they like me?”

Lynne drained her mug of tea.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry you were kept in the dark like this. But it’s completely forbidden to divulge details of that kind. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t you understand what I’m saying?” I raised my voice in some bitterness. “I’ve never met these two women. I don’t even know what they look like. But I’ve got something very big in common with them. I’d like to know about them. It might help.”

Lynne’s face had gone blank now. She suddenly looked like a bureaucrat behind a desk.

“If you’ve any concerns, you’ll have to raise them with DCI Links. I’m not authorized to make any disclosures.” There was a flash of human concern on her face. “Look, Nadia, I’m not the one to ask. I haven’t seen the files on the case. I’m just on the edge of it, like you.”

“I’m not on the edge,” I said. “I wish I were. I’m in the black hole at the center. So that’s it? You just want me to trust you, to have faith that you’re getting better at this?”

Fuck her, I thought. Fuck all of them. We walked inside, hardly looking at each other. She made some sandwiches with bits of ham that were left in the fridge and we sat watching the TV and not talking. I hardly noticed the program. At first I thought angrily, playing through scenes from my recent life, conversations with Lynne, Links, Cameron. I remembered lying in bed with Cameron, the way he gazed at me. I tried to imagine the erotic charge of a naked body like mine, the body of a woman who was going to die soon and didn’t know it. What was it like to be a lover whose only rival was a murderer? Did that make sex more exciting? The more I thought of it, the thought of him nuzzling my body made me want to vomit, as if there had been rats gnawing at my breasts and between my legs.

I hadn’t ever really been scared before. I don’t think I am someone who scares easily. I fall in love easily, and get angry quickly, and happy too, and irritated, and excited. I shout, cry, laugh. These things lie close to my surface, and they bubble up. But fear is deep down and hidden. Now I was scared, but the feeling didn’t obliterate all other emotions the way rage does, for instance, or sudden desire. It felt more like walking out of the sunlight into the shadow: stony cold, eerie. A different world.

As the night wore on, I realized that I didn’t know who to turn to. I thought about my parents but quickly dismissed them. They were old and nervous. They had always been anxious about me, before there was any real need for anxiety. Zach, darling glum Zach. Or Janet, maybe. Who would be calm, strong, a rock? Who would listen to me? Who would save me?

And then, without meaning to, I started to think about the women who had died. I knew nothing about them except their names, and that Jennifer Hintlesham had had three children. I remembered her little son’s belligerent cherub’s face. Two women. Zoe and Jenny. What had they looked like, how had they felt? They must have lain awake in their beds in the dark, as I was doing now, and felt the same icy fear flowing round their bodies that I was feeling now. And the same loneliness. For now of course it was not two but three women, joined together by one madman. Zoe and Jenny and Nadia. Nadia: That was me. Why me? I thought, as I lay there and listened to the sounds of the night. Why them, and why me? And just why?

But even as I lay there, curled up in my covers with my heart thumping and my eyes stinging, I knew I was going to have to move on from this blind and helpless state of terror. I couldn’t just huddle up and wait for something to happen, or for other people to rescue me from the nightmare. Crying under the sheets wasn’t going to save me. And it was as if a small part deep inside me clenched itself in readiness.

I fell asleep in the early hours, and the following morning, when I woke dazed with tiredness and strange dreams, I didn’t exactly feel braver or safer. But I did feel steelier. At ten o’clock I asked Lynne if she could leave the room because I had a private phone call to make. She said she’d wait in the car, and when she had gone, pulling the door firmly shut behind her, I phoned Cameron at work.

“I’m feeling desperate,” he said as soon as he came on the line.

“Good. So am I.”

“I’m so sorry that you feel betrayed. I feel terrible.”

“That’s all right,” I said. “You can do something for me.”

“Anything.”

“I want to see the files on this case. Not just about me, about the other two women as well.”

“That’s not possible. They’re not available to the public.”

“I know. I still want to see them.”

“It’s completely out of the question.”

“I want you to listen to me very clearly, Cameron. In my opinion you behaved badly about the whole sex thing. Presumably the thought of having sex with a potential victim is some kind of sicko turn-on. But I enjoyed it as well and I’m a grown-up and all that. I’m not interested in punishing you. I just want to make that clear. But if you don’t bring me the files I will go and see Links and I will tell him about our sexual relationship and I’ll probably cry a bit and talk about having been in a vulnerable state.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“And I’ll contact your wife and tell her.”

“You wouldn’t-that would be…” He made a coughing sound, as if he was choking. “You mustn’t tell Sarah. She’s been depressed; she couldn’t deal with it.”

“That doesn’t matter to me,” I said. “I’m not interested. Just get me the files.”

“You wouldn’t do it,” he said in a strangled voice. “You couldn’t.”

“Listen carefully to what I’m saying. There is a man who has killed two women and is now going to kill me. Just at this moment, I don’t care about your career and I don’t care about your wife’s feelings. If you want to try playing poker with me, try it. I want the files here tomorrow morning and enough time to read through them. Then you can take them away again.”

“I can’t do it.”

“It’s your choice.”

“I’ll try.”

“And I want everything.”

“I’ll do what I can.”

“Do,” I said. “And think of your career while you’re doing it. Think of your wife.”

When I put the phone down I expected to cry or feel ashamed, but I surprised myself by catching sight of my reflection in the mirror above the fireplace. At last, a friendly face.