Caroline had a terrified expression on her face. Her eyes were wide, her bag dropped by her feet and the contents spilled across the floor.

‘What’s going on?’ Jessica clearly heard Caroline say this time. Her voice was faltering and then Jess saw why.

Randall didn’t just have his left arm around his girlfriend, he had the scissors in his right hand placed next to her neck.

‘Stay calm,’ Jessica said. She couldn’t speak clearly and her thoughts were scrambled. She was speaking to Randall as much as Caroline. ‘Just stay calm.’

Randall had more tears running down his face, blending in with the blood and causing vertical streaks to form down his skin. ‘Why couldn’t you just leave it?’ he said.

Caroline clearly didn’t have a clue what was going on. She kept staring across the hallway at her friend. ‘Jess?’

‘It’s him,’ Jess said softly. ‘He’s Houdini. He’s Nigel Collins. He killed those four people.’ Jessica saw Caroline’s body slump.

‘What . . . ?’

Jessica didn’t know what else to add. Caroline was wearing a grey work suit and Randall’s blood had begun to run onto her shoulder. She was shaking her head despite still being gripped by her boyfriend and having the scissors held to her neck.

Randall coughed loudly, spluttering more blood. He moved his body around so his back was to their front door. ‘You’re going to let me go,’ he said but his words weren’t coming easily. He coughed loudly again and Jessica saw his head twitch once, twice. Caroline had clearly felt his grip slacken as she must have moved before being snatched back hard into her boyfriend’s body.

‘Where are you going to go, Randall?’ Jessica said. Her own throat still felt sore but her vision had more or less cleared. She knew she was pushing her luck.

Randall shook his head and blinked rapidly. ‘I . . . it doesn’t matter. I’ll start again.’

Caroline was whimpering, clearly not able to process everything that was happening.

‘Let her go,’ Jessica said, taking a step forwards. Her eyes were on the scissors in Randall’s hand. She saw his fingers tense on the grip but not move any closer to her friend’s neck.

‘Stop there,’ Randall said.

‘Just let her go. You told me you loved her, remember?’

Randall peered up and coughed again, before another furious blinking fit. Jessica took a few more small steps towards them as he struggled. She was around eight feet away from them.

The man’s grip on the scissors was still tight but, if anything, his grip on Caroline had slackened. ‘No closer,’ Randall said but his eyes were not backing up his words.

‘What’s wrong, Randall?’ Jessica said. She could see the confusion on Caroline’s face and shuffled a little closer as Randall tried to control his blinking. He snatched his left hand away from Caroline but moved the one with the scissors in so they were touching the front of her neck. Using his left hand, he first rubbed his eyes, then hit his own left ear a couple of times before putting his hand back across Caroline and holding her close to him while again moving the scissors a little further away from her.

Jessica simply watched, before taking another small step forwards.

Six feet now.

‘You need to let her go,’ Jessica said, carefully watching Randall, trying to catch his eye. He looked at her, still blinking.

‘What have you done?’ he asked.

‘There was an aspirin in your water,’ Jessica said, edging forwards. ‘The pain you thought was from me hitting you in the throat is actually your windpipe swelling. You need to let her go then let me call you an ambulance.’

Randall stuttered something but Jessica could see his eyes had widened. He dropped the scissors but put his right hand tighter around Caroline’s throat, using his left to fumble with the front door handle.

‘Randall . . .’ Jessica said. He launched into a coughing fit and Jessica flung herself at him, carefully targeting the left side of his body with Caroline held to his right. She caught him with her shoulder and his head cannoned back into the door. Caroline fell to the floor but was free, while Jessica used her feet to kick the scissors away. Randall was on his knees, spluttering and struggling to breathe.

39

The funeral had been far more emotional than Jessica had expected. She sat next to Caroline, with her arm around her for large parts of the ceremony. So many more people had turned out than Jessica would have expected. The marks around Jessica’s throat had already begun to fade and the cuts on her face would heal in time. The mental scars her friend must be feeling would be something that took a lot longer to fix.

Jessica had never discovered if it was in fact Harry who had provided the method for Nigel Collins to change his identity; she didn’t want to know. If it were true, part of her personality as a detective, the parts she had learned from Harry, would be destroyed. She had not phoned him, nor visited, and never would.

Gradually the police had filled in the gaps between Nigel Collins leaving hospital nearly six years ago and the first body turning up. He had tried to reinvent himself but, with his memory for faces, had recognised the parents of his tormentors. At first it had been something of a coincidence that two of Wayne Lapham’s victims had gone to him but he had seen it as a sign and followed things through to a conclusion.

‘Thank you for coming.’

Jessica was standing with Caroline in the church’s hall after the body had been put to rest. Paul Keegan was in front of them, offering his hand for them to shake.

‘Mary would have liked it, I think,’ he added.

‘It was lovely,’ Jessica said. ‘Are you going to be okay?’

‘I think so. Thank you, you know . . . for catching him.’

Randall Anderson, or Nigel Collins as he had previously been called, was currently in isolation and on suicide watch while on remand at Manchester Prison, formerly known as Strangeways. As he had crouched struggling for breath on the floor in their flat, Jessica called 999 and an ambulance as well as what seemed like most of the Greater Manchester Police force had been sent to her flat. The paramedics had arrived in time to save him but he was in no state to fight or escape.

Since then, he hadn’t said a word to anyone. Jessica had been offered leave, given her injuries and the severity of the case. She wouldn’t have wanted any part of his police interview anyway, even if it had been offered to her. Not that he had spoken about anything. He hadn’t confessed and offered no details of how things had been conceived. Some of the plan would never be known.

The police had raided both his old flat and his new one. It had been awkward because he didn’t seem to own much and what little he had was in boxes at the new place, while the old one had been cleaned out. They had found a small coil of thick metal wire in the wheelie bin at the back of the block where he lived. Tests had shown it was very similar to the implement used to kill the four people, with the assumption he had cut pieces off to use for each victim. The owner of the stall where he worked said it was the exact kind of wire they would use to help bind together shoes they were fixing. Two days later and the bins would have been emptied and the evidence lost. On first thought it seemed careless to ditch something like that in a bin so close to his flat but from Randall’s point of view, it must have seemed as if he was in the clear. Not only that but he was moving anyway.

Building a case would be hard given the lack of DNA but the trail from the locks to his stall, plus the wire and her evidence – and his refusal to speak – should be enough in court.

In terms of Jessica herself, everyone had been so concerned about her that no one had brought up anything about her following up a case that wasn’t hers. She didn’t know if there would be some sort of disciplinary action down the line but didn’t care either.