It takes her a moment to understand, even longer to agree. When the cuffs are on he starts to breathe more easily. He can only see the back of her head as she fumbles for something in the centre console, but it’s clear she’s changed. She’s always looked so immaculate, a reflection of the precision of her work, but now her hair is tangled and her clothes look like they’ve just been lifted from the floor.
‘I’ve got to phone in,’ she says, revealing what she’s been looking for. ‘I had no reception before, and if someone has been back at your house my colleagues will need to take a look.’
‘No!’ he says, reaching out. ‘No calls. No colleagues.’
He can picture them now, picking through his stuff, filthy fingers on previously spotless surfaces; touching his books, wondering, and perhaps laughing at the life he had been living; nothing dirty, nothing sharp, no temptations, no links to the past. Although it’s the future he’s thinking of now, of the perfect plan that must be protected at any cost.
‘I was alone,’ he says. ‘There was never anybody else.’ He checks the cuffs again and tests their strength as he sneaks another glance from under the blanket. It’s more than her appearance that is different; now she’s taking risks she would never have taken, acting out of desperation, not desire. He wants to understand what’s wrong. And he can’t resist the urge to help.
‘You have to promise me three things.’ He doesn’t wait for her to agree, but continues while his voice still holds firm. ‘First, you will not tell anyone about that place. Not now. Not ever. Second, I will be back there in three days whether or not I’ve helped you. Finally, you will never come and check on me again.’ As he waits for her reply he buries his head in the blanket, shutting out any trace of light.
Nine
They arrive in London at a quarter past five in the morning, having driven for more than six hours. For the final three Nathan has been sitting upright, staring out of the window like a child seeing the world for the first time. He’s wearing the clothes she found in the boot – handed over with a blush and no explanation – and the cuffs he’d demanded. He seems far more relaxed since she put them on him and agreed to his terms. She, on the other hand, is having trouble wrapping her head around what might happen when her three days are up, unable to ignore the lines of thickened skin she’d felt on his wrist.
Her most basic questions have gone unanswered so far. It makes her want to shake him. It makes her want to scream. What holds her back are the glimpses, the occasional moments when she glances in the mirror and sees who he used to be, sitting up straight, his eyes wide and alive, seeming to catch and process everything. This was how she’d seen him the first time they’d met; it was what had willed her to approach him.
‘I’m taking you to my flat,’ she says. It’s not what she wants to do; she wants to get on with the investigation straight away; if they have less than three days to try and catch this monster then every second counts. But they’ll have to wait to visit the crime scenes, and by making contact with her team she’s given up a number of freedoms already.
She’s been ordered into the station at 11 a.m, which means they’ll be staring at Nathan, wondering and drawing their own conclusions. Despite his betrayal, despite her fear of him, she feels protective.
‘You can get washed and dressed into clothes a little better fitting.’ She hates that there are more men’s clothes at her flat, but she’s not about to waste her breath on lies, not when all she has to do is look in the rear-view mirror to see how far they both have fallen.
They’re on the edge of the city now, fields replaced by streetlights, tower blocks, high walls, fences and graffiti. She remembers how he’d told her once that he loved the city at night, loved walking while it slept and soaking up the stillness. It reminds her of what she would have done as a child, sitting at her bedroom window, looking out at all the shimmering lights below, wondering when, and sometimes if, her dad would return.
They arrive half an hour later. She’s taken a couple of calls from DS Peters during the journey, keeping up to speed with developments, but remaining vague about her own movements. She feels herself getting sucked back into Nathan’s draw, like she needs to be fully committed to him, to his craziness, to his secrets, and everyone else is pushed to one side. It used to be a winning combination; now there are no such guarantees.
* * *
Her home is not a home. Six months back she was forced to move from her beloved riverside apartment in Kingston to a far cheaper part of town. Inside the poky seventh-storey flat are half-unpacked boxes piled up in the tiny entrance, food and plates spread across what little surface space is available in the kitchen and empty booze bottles that have even made it to the bathroom. She thinks of the other guys she brought back (before she started insisting on going to their places instead) and the look on their face as they took it all in in the light of day. If they’d known what she’d done for a living they might have asked questions, wondered where all the money had gone, but she’d kept quiet about that, kept quiet about everything, other than her desire for them to hurry up and leave.
She’s annoyed to find she cares far more about what Nathan thinks than any of those strangers. Not that she tries to explain. She can put on an act, just as he had done, pretend this is normal, pretend this doesn’t bother her, pretend that she doesn’t blame him for his part. Not that there’s any need; he seems totally oblivious as she guides him to the sofa still clinging on to the blanket she’d thrown over his cuffs, her every touch making him flinch.
She thinks for a moment about turning on the TV like she normally would on returning from work in the early hours and knowing there’s no chance of sleep, but she worries it might be the news, or a violent thriller, and what such scenes might trigger in Nathan.
Leaving him curled up in the corner of the sofa, Katie goes to the kitchen where she pulls out a tin of beans, pausing as she peels back the lid. She runs her finger along the edge, pressing far harder than necessary to test its sharpness and feeling the skin part, just as it might have done on her neck. She shakes off the image and puts on a plaster as the beans start to boil, then, apologising for not having anything else in the house, places the food in front of her guest, watching carefully for his reaction. The smile makes her skin crawl. It’s the same smile she’d seen when he’d finally let his mask slip, when they’d stood together over the headless body of Steven Fish. In all her years as a detective she’d never seen a crime scene like it, and when she’d turned to Nathan for support, that same terrible smile had appeared before her.
He eats slowly, his cuffed hands rising and falling, and when he’s done he pushes the plate away. He yawns, and she points a shaking arm at the bathroom, wondering what kind of monster she’s invited into her house.
While he’s in there she stands with one ear to the door, listening to him scrub at his skin. The water stops, and she hears him open the medicine cabinet. She’s about to knock, to ask what he’s up to, when he appears in the doorway holding out his hands, one of which contains two white pills.
‘To help me sleep,’ he explains, looking at her with heavy eyes that suggest he’ll need no assistance.
‘But we’ve only got a few hours.’
‘Before what?’
‘Before we begin.’
He nods and turns away, carefully placing the pills at the back of the sink.
When he’s in bed and wrapped up under her dirty sheets, she reaches for the light.
‘One more thing,’ he calls out, lifting his cuffed hands.
‘Of course,’ she says, reluctantly stepping forward and reaching into her pocket for the key.
Nathan shakes his head and jabs his hands towards the door. ‘I want that locked too.’
‘The key is just here,’ she says, gesturing towards it.
‘From the outside,’ he says, pulling the sheets up over his head.
* * *