It finds Hans’s neck.

It goes in the side, the entire blade, slicing in on an angle so the tip comes out the front. Jerry puts all his strength into it, pulling forward, trying to cut all the way through to the front, but it won’t move any further. Not that it matters. Hans stops going for the gun and puts his hand to his neck, blood shooting out like a fountain, a gurgling sound coming from deep inside his throat. He straightens up, both hands on the wound now, trying to stem the flow, but it’s no good. Already the light starts to fade from his eyes. He stumbles and leans against the wall, the knife still buried all the way into his neck. Jerry reaches down for the gun. He points it at Hans.

“This is for Sandra,” he says, but before he can pull the trigger, the hockey stick comes back into view. It comes swinging into his field of vision, held by a woman too stubborn to die. It hits Jerry in the forehead and all the lights in the world switch off.

DEAR DIARY

Dear Diary, dear Future Jerry, dear Anybody Else who is reading this, my name is Jerry Grey and I have a story. I am a father, a husband, a crime writer, a gunshot survivor, I have Alzheimer’s, and I am a convicted killer. I murdered my wife. I don’t remember killing her, and I don’t know whether to be grateful for Captain A hiding that from me or not. I live in a psychiatric facility with bars on the windows and locks on the doors and gray walls in every direction. Sometimes I have questions, and sometimes the doctors answer them, and sometimes I don’t believe what I’m hearing, and sometimes to prove their point they’ll show me a copy of the confession note I wrote. Other times they’ll show me the newspaper articles too. On days when they don’t have time to answer my questions, they just medicate me. It’s easier that way. For them, and for me.

They tell me I’ve been here a year now.

This is day one of keeping a diary, which I’m doing in an attempt to keep my sanity, of which there is very little left. Though, really, I think it’s more of an attempt to preserve some of the man I used to be. It wasn’t my idea, but the idea of one of the doctors. He thinks it may help.

Sadly, the man I used to be is a monster. I killed a lot of people. I killed my wife. I killed a florist who worked on my daughter’s wedding. I killed my best friend, Hans, I killed a woman who used to be my neighbor, and I also killed an orderly at the nursing home where I used to live. There are diaries, I’ve been told, that I’ve kept in the past, but the police have them now. Some days I think those diaries might tell me I’m innocent, other days I think they just confirm what I wrote in the confession. It means all the things I don’t want to be true are, indeed, true. Yet the only person I can remember killing is Suzan. Suzan with a z.

When I try to think of these people, their names and faces all fade into a murky past, but not hers. I remember quite clearly standing in the backyard of her house, the moon bright and full, I remember embracing the night and feeling the blood pulse through my body as the need took me over. I had wanted Suzan from the moment I first saw her. I wanted to know how she felt.

So, Diary, I’m going to tell you all about it. But first . . . I don’t really like the name Diary. I’ve been thinking of Madness Diary, but that doesn’t quite fit. I’ll think about it and see what else I can come up with.

Future Jerry, let me tell you about Suzan.

Madness Diary, let me tell you how my life as a killer began. . . .

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Out of the nine novels I’ve written so far, this one has been the most fun for me, and perhaps the most personal. In the book, Jerry keeps saying “write what you know,” and for the first time I’ve gotten to do that. There is plenty in Jerry’s life that is similar to my own—and of course there is plenty that isn’t. For a start, he’s older (though that’ll obviously change one day) and, Alzheimer’s aside, he’s in better shape than I am. He went to university, I didn’t. He has a wife and a daughter, I don’t. We are both closet trekkies, both drink G&Ts, and we have the same artwork hanging in our offices—the King Kong Escapes print hangs near my desk, and of course there’s the music. Each of the books I’ve written has a soundtrack—a very loud soundtrack that blasts throughout the house and half the neighborhood. Why so loud? Because I don’t want to hear myself sing. Nobody wants that. The Laughterhouse was written to The Doors, Cemetery Lake to Pink Floyd, Joe Victim to Bruce Springsteen. Others have had The Killers, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles . . . the line in the book about the music Jerry listens to being immortal—that’s truly what I believe. This book was actually written to the tunes of David Gray—he’s always been one of my favorites, and I’ve pretty much been binge listening to him for the last year or so. In fact, I started learning guitar recently, and it’s David Gray songs that I practice with.

The last few books were written in a variety of countries, but this one was all New Zealand. Half in the summer and half in the winter. Like I say, this one was a lot of fun for me. It feels like I’ve been living with Jerry for a long time now—and I get the feeling I’ll be living with him for some time yet.

Like all the books, Trust No One only exists because of the wonderful and dedicated team at Atria Books in New York. There’s my super fantastic editor, Sarah Branham, who always guides me in the right direction, pointing out what I can’t see until all the pieces fall into place. Judith Curr, David Brown, Hillary Tisman, Janice Fryer, Lisa Keim, Emily Bestler, Anne Badman, Isolde Sauer, Leora Bernstein, and all the others—thank you for giving my books a home. And of course thanks to Stephanie Glencross, my editor at Gregory & Company in the UK, who once again nailed things on the head, sending me down the necessary path of many rewrites.

Let me sign off once again by thanking you, the reader. Thanks again for the messages, for heading along to festivals to say hi—it’s always inspiring to see people passionate about books. Like always, you guys are who I write for. You guys are the reason I like to make bad things happen . . .

Paul Cleave

April 2015

Christchurch, New Zealand

Loved this thriller? Go back and read the rest of Paul Cleave . . .

Five Minutes Alone

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Joe Victim

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The Laughterhouse

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Collecting Cooper

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The Laughterhouse

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Cemetery Lake

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