She would have to be careful but couldn’t risk leaving the flat or letting him leave and losing him for good.

Jessica tried to keep her voice calm. ‘Hi. She sent me a message this morning. I’ve just been out and about.’ She thought her voice had faltered slightly but, if it did, Randall said nothing.

‘Do you want to help me?’ he asked. ‘I don’t really know what I’m doing with all these clothes and things. I’ve got these boxes but I have no idea how it should be sorted or anything.’ He indicated some cardboard boxes on the floor by his feet and was smiling.

Jessica tried to return the smile but it was excruciating. If she could just get away from him for a few minutes, she could call the station and get help.

‘No worries. I just want to get a drink. Do you want anything?’

‘Yeah, just some water would be fine.’

Jessica walked backwards out the room, her heart racing. She turned around and went into the kitchen, putting two glasses on the draining board letting the tap run as she took her phone out from her pocket. Even if he were nearby, perhaps he would hear the water and not her?

Her cracked phone screen was still not properly working. She pressed the screen to view her contacts but it wouldn’t load. She used one hand to fill both glasses, using the other to jab at the front of her phone ever harder. Eventually she had both glasses filled but left the water running anyway. Finally the phone started to respond. She needed to use both thumbs but got the list of names scrolling down. She could see her hand shaking and felt sick but kept telling herself to focus. She got to the entry ‘Station’ and pressed call. She put the phone to her ear and turned around to face the door.

Randall was standing there looking directly at her with a pair of scissors in his hand.

37

‘Are you all right?’ Randall said. ‘You’ve been a while.’

Jessica heard the call connect and the desk sergeant’s voice say ‘hello’. In that fraction of a second she weighed up blurting out as much as she could, saying, ‘It’s Jessica Daniel, I’ve got Nigel Collins in my flat, send help.’ Could she hold Randall off for long enough until help arrived? Would the sergeant understand everything in time? Was it worth the risk?

She hung up and put the phone in her pocket. ‘Yeah, I was just trying Caroline to see if she knew when she was going to be finished. There was no answer though.’ Randall looked as if he was weighing her up. Jessica thought she might have been imagining it. Could he know? She hadn’t said anything that could give her away.

He motioned the scissors in his hand. They had long blades and were sharp on the end. ‘Do you have any tape? One of the boxes just broke.’

‘Yeah, hang on. Here’s your water.’ Jessica offered him one of the glasses and turned the tap off. She focused hard on not letting her hand shake as she gave it to him, not showing she was nervous. He took it from her without saying anything and drank. She took a few sips from her glass then tipped the rest away. She felt sick.

Randall emptied the glass and offered it back to her. ‘Thanks.’

‘No worries. The tape is in that drawer behind you.’

Jessica pointed to a cabinet next to the door. Randall turned around and opened it, reaching in and rummaging. There was a knife rack above the drawer he was looking in. If he had figured things out, she knew she was in big trouble.

She watched him but he didn’t make any sudden movements and quickly pulled a roll of tape out of the drawer. ‘Got it,’ he said. ‘Are you coming?’

‘Yeah.’ She wanted him to turn around and walk out of the door first; that way she could at the very least pocket one of the knives.

He didn’t move and stood holding the door open for her. ‘After you.’

She moved slowly, looking at the knives out of the corner of her eye. She didn’t necessarily want to stab him but she wanted something that would give her an advantage if need be. She thought about the distances. There was no way she could pick something up without him noticing but could she grab a weapon and back him into a corner? Even if she did, what then?

Jessica walked past the knives, in front of Randall and through the open door towards Caroline’s bedroom. She could feel him moving behind her but kept her cool and went back into Caroline’s room, waiting by the side of the bed for him to go past her towards the wardrobes. He did what she expected and pulled one of the boxes onto the bed before taping it underneath where it had broken.

Jessica watched him carefully. He had put the scissors on the bed but then picked them up to cut the tape and pocketed them.

‘Right, where do we begin?’ he asked as he turned back around to the wardrobe.

Jessica couldn’t believe she was going to have to make small talk. This was a man who had killed four people. ‘I reckon put all the trousers and skirts and stuff in one box, then the tops and dresses separate.’

‘Heh, I was going to group everything by colour. Good job you’re here.’ Randall laughed and Jessica tried to join in but there was no substance to it. ‘Can you fold?’ he asked.

‘Okay,’ Jessica said. ‘If you take them out, I’ll fold and you can pack.’

The situation was almost laughable. Jessica was looking for a way out. Could she somehow lock him in this room then make a call? Once again, she had been stupid. She should have phoned the police in the first place.

They started working in tandem but to Jessica it was like an out-of-body experience, a bit like being back in the interview room with Peter Hunt and Wayne Lapham. Her body was folding the clothes but her mind was somewhere else, desperately trying to think of how to handle things.

‘How’s the job going?’ Randall said out of the blue. Jessica stopped halfway through folding a pair of jeans and looked up at the man in front of her. He had just put another pile of clothes on the bed and his hands were free. ‘I know you were taken off that Houdini case, it was all over the news but I just wondered how things were now.’

Jessica said nothing but folded quickly and put the trousers down on the bed. ‘It’s okay,’ she said. ‘I’ve been working on other things.’

‘Not one of those TV cops who keeps working a case then?’

She thought she detected something in his voice and tried to laugh but her voice cracked. ‘Nah, not me.’

‘What’s the flyer about in your bag then?’

She glanced up quickly and saw it in his face. He knew.

Instinctively, Jessica raced towards the door but Randall was faster. He pinned her against the wall, his forearm across her chest, shouting in her face: ‘Why couldn’t you leave it be?’

She could smell his breath and aftershave.

Jessica didn’t have time to think but acted instinctively. She couldn’t raise her arms properly but had enough leverage to smash the side of her hand hard into his windpipe. He instantly reeled back with a vicious cough and released her. She wriggled down away from his arms and escaped out of the bedroom, dashing for the front door, having no idea what to do next. He was quickly on her, bringing her down with something like a rugby tackle in their hallway. She tried to turn over but felt his fist punch her hard across the face as she did so. She saw stars, blinking to try to clear her head while hearing him continue to gasp for breath. She thought she could feel a trickle of what was almost certainly blood on her top lip.

Randall was now sitting astride her, his knees digging into her elbows so she could barely move. Her legs were relatively free but she knew she wasn’t strong enough to flip him over.

His breathing was tight but his blue eyes were staring right at her. ‘It was over!’ he shouted. His tone was lighter and he didn’t scream as he had done in the bedroom. ‘It was over. I just wanted to get on with things, settle down with Caroline.’