‘And I did the right thing. Neither of us thought it would spread that fast.’

‘So help us to help him. Only we can guarantee his safety now.’

Naomie was teetering now between her loyalty to Ethan and the force of Helen’s logic. Helen tried one last throw of the dice.

‘Despite everything, I know that you’re not a bad person. I know you have goodness in you. We found a half-built bonfire in the basement of his mother’s office block today. Ethan was about to put the lives of a hundred people in danger. Did you really sign up for that?’

Naomie shrugged, guilt playing across her features.

‘Of course you didn’t,’ Helen conceded. ‘But Ethan did. And we stopped him. And I’m very worried about what he’ll do now that we’ve stopped his little game. I know you’ve felt powerless and overlooked in your life, but it is now in your gift to help us. So I’m asking you to do the right thing. Help us bring your Ethan in safely.’

Naomie hung her head and sobbed quietly.

‘Think about it,’ Helen told her, determined to make one last push. ‘Think about what you’ve done. Karen Simms, Denise Roberts, Agnieszka Jarosik and little Alice Simms. She was just a little kid, Naomie. Six years old, her whole life ahead of her. You stole that from her – you and no one else. And I think you owe it to her family and all the families you and Ethan have hurt to end this now. I can’t have any more deaths on my conscience and neither can you.’

There was a long pause, during which Naomie continued to stare at the floor. Helen looked at Sanderson – had she even heard what she’d said? – then Naomie suddenly spoke, muttering a single word that changed everything:

‘Ok.’

136

He brought the cup of coffee up to his lips, but his hand was shaking too much and he put it back down with a clank. The sudden noise made the café owner look up briefly from his work, before he returned his attention to the business of pushing fatty bits of bacon and sausage round a pan. The smell of the grease made Ethan want to vomit and he was very tempted to get up and go, but caution carried the day. This down-at-heel greasy spoon in Nicholstown was a good little hideaway. The only people who came here were dossers and Polish builders, both of whom had enough problems of their own to worry about him.

He cut a ridiculous figure in his dirty overalls, but it couldn’t be helped and came in useful now. The TV that hung from the café wall broadcast Sky News round the clock and Ethan was both alarmed and amused now to see his parents sitting behind a table at Southampton Central Police Station, flanked by DI Grace.

The volume was turned down low, so Ethan shuffled his chair a little closer, straining to hear. He refused to miss this little pantomime.

‘If you can hear this, Ethan, please get in touch. We love you, son, and we just want to know you’re safe and well.’

How much must this be costing them? The lies must stick in their throat but that wasn’t the best bit. They must be cringing inside, being paraded to the world as the parents who bred a killer and never had a clue. Although they had always tried to deny it, he was their flesh and blood. And he would make them pay for that, as they had made him pay.

‘There is a number you can call free of charge …’

His father continued in his familiar stumbling way. Had he been drinking this morning? He wouldn’t put it past him. If he and Jacqueline were ever to acknowledge the extent of their problems, they would probably classify themselves as high-functioning alcoholics. What a misguided label that was. They were successful professionally but there was nothing high-functioning about them. They were cold, cruel and self-absorbed.

He had always strived to get their attention, and when he didn’t get it, he screamed louder. And when that didn’t work, he resorted to more desperate measures. Abuse, petty acts of violence and later some firestarting. These had always been chalked up as acts of characteristic clumsiness, as the truth was rather harder to swallow. They had tried to control him through medication and later through bitches like Agnieszka, who’d shout at him then lock him in his room when she became bored of his behaviour. Still, good things come to those who wait. They had all been repaid in fine style.

His mother, still stunned from her ‘brush with death’ had now taken centre stage and was in the midst of a lachrymose appeal. Who, he wondered, was she crying for? Herself? Her marriage? Her life? Or were they tears of regret for her son? That was the only emotion he had ever inspired in her. Not love, not compassion, not even pity – just regret. For one drunken, unprotected screw that had cost them all dear.

Ethan’s eye drifted away from the screen to find the café owner staring at him once more, curious no doubt as to why his attention was fixed so raptly on the screen. The man dropped his eyes as soon as Ethan looked over, but it made Ethan think. There was one more thing to do – one last act. How long could he move undetected, now that the city was looking for him? How long before someone became suspicious? Or, worse, recognized him?

Things hung in the balance now. They were so close to the end and as Ethan turned his gaze once more to his pitiful parents, he vowed that he would not be beaten. If Naomie held her nerve, then all would be well. It was only a matter of time now, until the circle was complete.

137

‘How did you two meet?’

Now that Naomie was talking, Helen was determined to get chapter and verse.

‘I found him.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I was walking home and … I found him. He was lying face down in the street. I saw a couple of other people walk round him, like he was a drunk. But he didn’t look that way to me.’

‘He was having a fit?’

Naomie nodded.

‘He’d been out late, walking the streets. And he can feel these things when they come on – he gets a tingling in his hands and feet, his vision goes funny – but that doesn’t mean he can stop them. He’d fallen, hit his head. So I put his head in my lap and looked after him until an ambulance came. He felt he owed me, but I never felt like that.’

‘And you became friends?’

‘Didn’t have anyone else, did we? His parents liked to keep him inside, boss every second of his life, but he found his way out at night and we used to meet at the same time, same place – we used to joke that it was our ten o’clock shot. A kind of fuck you to my mum and his folks, who thought we were tucked up in bed. Not that they ever bothered to check.’

‘What did you get up to?’

‘Talked, smoked, walked a bit. We just liked being together.’

It was said so sweetly that in other circumstances Helen would have smiled. It was hard to believe that Naomie and her lover were multiple murderers, with four deaths on their conscience. Even now that didn’t seem to faze Naomie as much as it should. She seemed more concerned about her boyfriend.

‘Was it his idea? The fires?’

‘I’m not saying anything about that. You’ll have to ask him yourself.’

‘I’d very much like the opportunity, but I’m going to need specifics. Where did you go with him? Where would he go now when he needs time and space to think? Where does he go at night?’

Naomie looked at Helen. She could tell even now that Naomie was torn – she’d never thought she’d be in the position of having to betray her lover. So it was softly and with some regret when she finally said: