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She must like you.

‘I thought I would never find you,’ you say. ‘But you left a trail. You left a trail only I could follow. That was deliberate, wasn’t it? Because you knew I would. You wanted me to find you.’

‘Of course,’ she says.

‘Well here I am.’

There is a long silence.

‘What – what do you want?’ she says.

You laugh. You turn the laugh into a giggle at the end. It’s cuter that way.

‘You! I want you. But you must know that?’

‘What do you mean?’ Her voice is low and timid.

‘It’s what I’ve always wanted,’ you say. ‘You want it, too. I know you do. We’re meant to be together. And now we can be.’

There is an odd look on her face. It is not happiness, exactly. More like she has a question of some sort.

‘You want that, don’t you?’

‘I do,’ she says, and you can see from the emotion in her face that she means it. ‘Of course I do. But we can’t be together. Not while he is still out there. He will find me.’

‘It’s OK,’ you say. ‘You’ll be safe with me.’

‘No,’ she says. ‘I have to stay hidden.’

You want to tell her that it won’t be a problem. You want to tell her that he is no threat at all. He never was a threat.

But you cannot. If you do, she will ask how you know, and you will have to explain what you did: the faked photos, the emails. You created him as a threat. And now it is your undoing.

There is only one solution.

You have to remove him.

And then it comes to you, in one sudden burst of inspiration.

You can get rid of him and her, at the same time.

Carl Langton and Mary Jordan: both of your problems removed, to clear the way for the one thing you have always wanted.

It is perfect.

Part Five

You Don’t Like Reality

Ryan held up his hands. ‘So that’s when I knew,’ he said. ‘What I had to do.’

Mary closed her eyes. What he was saying was so monstrous, so twisted, so hard to comprehend that she felt as though the ground was moving under her feet, as though her entire understanding of what a human being was had been wrong.

‘I mean, I was the victim of my own success.’ He gave a disbelieving laugh. ‘I was so good she really believed it all. And in the end that was what trapped me. But, as usual, I found a way out. I’m not like you. I don’t fail.’ He waved his hands in an expansive gesture. ‘Carl was back in Barrow; it was too perfect to resist.’

He looked at Carl, then at Mary, his eyebrows raised as though seeking approval.

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘You have to admit. It’s pretty impressive.’