She absent-mindedly lays the table, tips salad leaves into a bowl, cuts a baguette into ovals. They’ll eat without him if they have to.

  But a minute later she hears the door bang and then Roan is in the kitchen, glowing, radiating the heat of aerobic exercise.

  ‘Oh,’ she says, ‘you’ve been for a run?’

  ‘Yes, straight from work.’ He’s still breathless as he pulls off his gloves, his snood, his beanie. ‘Had a lot of pent-up … stuff. Ran all the way up to the village and back. I found this place.’ He unzips his jacket and pulls it off. ‘Right up the other end of the village. Weirdest place. Like a kind of James Bond thing: crazy low-rise buildings, walkways, hidden away in this circle of trees.’ He drops the jacket on the back of a kitchen chair. ‘Anyway, I googled it, and apparently it’s what remains of the most expensive council estate ever built! Some failed socialist experiment under a Labour government in the 1970s. All owned privately now, of course – worth a fortune. But honestly. The weirdest place. Like something from the future. Like a sci-fi film set …’

  Roan is burbling and Cate is aware on some level of what he’s talking about and on some level she would like to respond, would like to say, Yes, yes, I saw that place too! But the words stick halfway up her throat, because as he talks, her gaze goes to the angular outline of her husband’s torso, the way the Lycra clings to his long, sculpted arms and to the fluorescent orange pattern that works its way from wrist to shoulder up the sleeves.

  ‘Where did you find that top?’ she interrupts him.

  ‘What?’

  ‘That top? Where did you find it?’

  ‘I don’t know. My drawers, I think … why?’

  ‘I thought …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing. I just haven’t seen it for a while.’

  Somehow the top that was hidden away in the back of Josh’s wardrobe has been laundered and returned to Roan’s drawer.

  Roan shrugs. ‘I’m off for a shower,’ he says. ‘What’s for dinner?’

  ‘Pasta bake,’ says Cate, her voice coming out at an oddly high pitch. ‘And salad.’

  47

  SAFFYRE

  Josh asked me what Harrison John looked like so I did a google for him. My hands shook as I did it. I couldn’t bear to find out anything about him, like that he had a kid, or that he’d done something good, or that he was clever or something. I was so scared that he’d have done something to redeem himself, to dilute my feelings of vengeance, because right then those feelings were the only feelings I really had; they were what got me up in the mornings, got me to school, got me to eat, got me to breathe.

  I pressed the search button and held my breath.

  And then there he was: his face, the squashed-down nose, the heavy brow, striking some kind of stupid gangster pose. According to the accompanying article, he was part of a community music project; something to do with the college he attended.

  I turned the phone to Josh. ‘That’s him.’

  ‘That’s Harrison?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Looks like a loser.’

  ‘Right,’ I agreed. ‘So much of a loser.’

  We were in the playground outside my block where I’d told Josh to meet me. I was still in my school gear.

  When Josh saw me, he’d said, ‘You look so different.’

  I’d said, ‘This is my alter ego.’

  ‘So, what’s your plan?’ Josh said now.

  I turned off my phone. ‘Well, I know where he lives now.’

  Josh said, ‘How did you do that?’

  I tapped my nose. I said, ‘I told you. I’m clever.’

  ‘Are you going to stalk him too?’

  I hit Josh on the arm, playfully. ‘I’m not a stalker!’ I said.

  ‘You kind of are,’ he replied.

  He smiled and I liked his smile. Like when a dog looks at you in that soulful, pure way and you think, You are too, too good for this world. That was what it was like when Joshua Fours smiled. Like he was too good for this world.

  ‘Anyway,’ I replied, ‘I already started. I followed him to the Co-op and back this afternoon. He didn’t see me.’

  ‘What did he buy?’

  ‘Haribo. And some tobacco.’

  ‘Classy.’

  ‘Isn’t it?’ I said. ‘And now I know where he goes to college. He’ll have no escape from me.’

  ‘Can I come with you?’

  ‘You mean, be my co-stalker?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Of course you can.’

  ‘Shall we go now?’

  I checked the time on my phone. It was nearly five.

  ‘Come on then,’ I said. We jumped off the wall. ‘This way,’ I said. ‘Follow me.’

  Harrison lived up the other end of my road, towards Chalk Farm in a really ugly low-rise block of flats backing on to the railway line. We sat on a bench opposite. It was freezing cold and I could hear Josh’s teeth chattering. ‘You OK?’ I asked. ‘You can go home if you want.’

  He shook his head. ‘No. I want to see him. In the flesh.’

  I smiled a half-smile at him. Then we both turned back to watch the flats.

  And then there he was. Pushing his way through the front door of the block. He was dressed all in black again, the Puffa coat, black stretchy trousers, black trainers, a flash of bare ankle in between, a bag slung over his back. He lit a roll-up cigarette as he emerged on to the street, squinting as he inhaled. And then he turned right, headed up towards Haverstock Hill. We followed him, silently. He caught a bus up towards Hampstead, running to catch it just before its doors closed.

  Josh and I looked at each other. It was a single-decker bus. We wouldn’t be able to get on it without being spotted. I headed back to my flat. Josh headed back to his flat. We arranged to meet up the next day, same time, same place.

  It was two days later that I saw the headline about a sex attack on Hampstead Heath. A man, in black, wearing a mask. Pulled a woman down a quiet pathway and groped her. Put his hands inside her underwear. Grabbed her breasts. And then ran.

  I thought of Harrison John jumping on that bus towards Hampstead at five twenty, two days before, in his black coat, his black leggings. It was him. I knew it was.

  On 21 January Josh called me. He sounded panicked. He said, ‘I think Harrison attacked my sister’s friend. The police are here. Fuck. What shall I do?’

  He explained that his sister’s friend had come over after school and then left just as they were about to sit down for dinner. Then she’d come back a few minutes later saying that someone had accosted her.

  ‘What did she say he looked like?’ I asked.

  There was a pause. ‘She said she didn’t see him. But she said he was silent. That he grabbed her from behind. By the hips. That he rubbed himself against her. Tried to get hold of her breasts. But she broke free and ran back to ours. Shall I say something, Saffyre? To the police? Shall I say I think I know who it might be?’

  My biggest regret is that I didn’t say yes, didn’t tell them. Tell them his name. Let them track him down to his door, search his black bag, take his prints, upend his existence. Let them destroy him.

  I didn’t say that because I wanted to be the one. Because what if they knocked on his door and he said, It wasn’t me? And they believed him? And then he would close the door and his chest would puff out and he’d think he was cleverer than anyone. Or what if they went to his door and brought him in and questioned him and it wasn’t him? I wanted it to be him. I needed it to be him. He was evil and he needed to be stopped.

  So I said, ‘No, don’t say anything. Just keep quiet. Leave it with me. Leave it with me.’

  48

  Barry walks into the interview room. Owen can recognise the sound of his leather soles on the wooden floors from a few metres away now, followed briskly by the ponderous smell of his aftershave.

  ‘Good morning, Owen.’

  ‘Are they letting me go?’

  Barry stops and closes his eyes. ‘No, Owen, I’m afraid not. And look, you should know – this is happening now.’

  He pulls a folded paper from his briefcase and throws it on the table in front of Owen. It’s this morning’s Metro: ‘SAFFYRE SUSPECT’S SICK PLAN TO DATE-RAPE DOZENS OF WOMEN’.

  Below it is the awful photo, yet again, of Owen being jammed into the police car with the fresh cut on his forehead, the wet, asymmetric hair sticking up at angles, the dead look in his eye, the hint of a snaggle tooth between his lips.

  He stops and looks at Barry. ‘But …? I don’t …?’

  ‘Just read it, Owen.’

  Owen Pick, the disgraced college lecturer currently being held under arrest in a north London police station for the abduction and possible murder of missing teenager Saffyre Maddox, had a grand master plan, according to a friend on an incel forum he used to frequent. The friend, who wishes to remain anonymous, told us of a horrifying plan revealed to him by Pick during a pub session earlier this month. He said, ‘Part of the problem for the incel community is that we are being bred out of society. Women refuse to consider us as sexual partners, therefore we are not being given the opportunity to reproduce. Our genes are being phased out deliberately, by our governments, the media and by society. This is an issue that goes very deep into the psychology of the incel community. It’s something that Owen and I have discussed at great length. While I agree with the general theory and am myself active in the incel community in terms of trying to change the way we are viewed by society, I was very alarmed indeed the last time Owen Pick and I met up for a drink. He chose a shabby down-at-heel pub and I was surprised when I met him for the first time to see that he was quite well presented. He didn’t, to my eye, look like a classic incel. He looked like he could pass in society. I couldn’t see why he would have trouble attracting women. But there was something about him, something cold, an edge. He chilled me a little. I would say he had a lot of the traits of a psychopath. And then he told me he had a plan. He showed me a jar of pills. I had no idea what they were. He laid them on the table between us and he told me what his plan was. He was going to hook up with women on dating apps and then drug them and inseminate them while they were unconscious. He told me he was doing it for the good of the incel community, but I didn’t buy it. There was something about him, a narcissism, a lack of humanity, of compassion. I would say he had a personality disorder and was using the incel community and our beliefs to legitimise a sick personal agenda. In my opinion, Owen Pick was a rapist, masquerading as an incel.

  A strange noise comes from Owen. He wasn’t expecting to make it. It comes from the deepest pit of his stomach, a curdled growl. He raises his fists, which had curled themselves up into rocks while he read the article, and then brings them down hard on to the table. Then he collects the newspaper between his hands, pushes it into a ball and hurls it across the room.

  ‘Fuck!’ he yells. ‘Fuck this. Fuck all of it!’

  He sits down heavily, drops his face into the heels of his hands and begins to cry. When he looks up, Barry is sitting, adjusting the cuffs of his shirt. He sees Owen looking at him and passes him a handkerchief from inside his jacket.

  ‘It’s not looking good, Owen,’ he says quietly.

  ‘This is bullshit – you know that, don’t you? Bullshit. None of that is how it happened. He’s twisted the whole thing. He was the one. He gave me the drugs. He’s just pushing his agenda and throwing me under the wheels to do it. Fuck!’

  Barry continues to look at him. ‘Well,’ he says. ‘We’ve still got a lot of work to do. But this’ – he points at the screwed-up newspaper – ‘is all hearsay and should have no bearing on the investigation. Let’s just put this behind us and see what our friends have got for us today, shall we?’

  A few moments later DIs Currie and Henry walk into the room. Owen reads their energy. It’s been slowly depleting the past couple of days as all their so-called leads take them nowhere, as their case against Owen refuses to grow. But now there is a certain bristle about the pair of them as they take their seats, arrange themselves and their paperwork.

  DI Currie gets straight to the point. ‘Owen. Do you know a woman called Alicia Mathers?’

  Owen shakes his head. ‘Never heard of her.’

  ‘Well, Alicia Mathers claims to know you.’

  Owen sighs. He’s down the rabbit hole. He’s in a world where people tell him that the sky is green, the grass is blue, two and two is five, black is white and white is black. And in this world, yes, of course a woman called Alicia Mathers would claim to know him.

  ‘Does she?’ he says.

  ‘Yes. She says she saw you that night. And that you were talking to a young girl in a hoodie.’

  He rests his head on the table. The plastic feels cool against his forehead. His eyes are closed and he counts to five silently before raising his head again.

  ‘And she is coming forward only now, because …?’

  ‘It’s complicated,’ says DI Currie. ‘She has very good reason for not coming forward before now. Very sensitive reasons.’

  ‘And they are …?’

  ‘I’m not at liberty to share that with you.’

  ‘No,’ says Owen. ‘No. Of course you’re not. So, go on, what did this Alicia claim to have seen?’

  ‘Alicia says she saw you and a girl in a hoodie having a conversation. Outside your house.’

  A bolt of light flashes through Owen’s head. It’s there again, that lost moment, the moment that keeps showing itself to him in fractured shards, over and again, whenever he closes his eyes. The girl in the hoodie, not in fact walking away, but walking towards him. Saying something. He thought it was false memory. But now he is being told that it wasn’t.

  ‘That might have happened,’ he says, feeling a surge of relief as the words leave his mouth. ‘I’ve been getting flashbacks the past day or so. It might have happened. But I have no idea what we talked about. I have no idea what she said. What I said. I have no idea.’

  Owen hears Barry sighing heavily to his right and he notices the faces of the two detectives contort slightly, muscles and nerves under their skin reacting to his words.

  ‘Owen, Alicia Mathers claims she saw the girl in the hoodie talking to you, outside your house. She claims she saw you follow her into your back garden.’

  ‘Yes,’ says Owen, his head swimming with blurred images, his skin tingling with the uncertain memory of a girl’s hand on his arm. ‘Yes, that might have happened. Yes. She ran towards me. There was a woman walking towards the house opposite. The girl ran towards me. She ran across the road and she said …’ It’s there now, risen from the vaults of his mind: Clive! Is that you, Clive?

  ‘She called me Clive. She wanted to see something. She …’

  What did she do? The room is entirely silent. He can see that Angela is not breathing. He looks down at his hands. The skin on his palms tingles as he feels another memory returning. ‘She asked me for a leg-up. To the roof of the garage. I put my hands out, like this.’ He demonstrates his hands linked together into a perch. ‘She was heavy. I’m not very strong. She almost fell back on to me, but she managed to grab hold of something. A gutter. Something. And pull herself up. And then …’

  He pinches the bridge of his nose. Where had this been? All these days?

  He continues: ‘I don’t know. I stood guard. I don’t know how long. I didn’t talk to her. Then she jumped down. She jumped down. She said ow. And that—!’ He starts as something occurs to him. ‘That must have been when she cut herself! On my wall. And dropped her phone. She dropped her phone and then she picked it up again. And she ran. She said, “Thanks, Clive,” and she ran.’

  ‘Clive?’ says Angela.

  ‘Yes. I don’t know. I don’t know why she called me Clive. She must have thought I was someone else.’

  He sees DI’s Currie and Henry exchange a look.

  ‘She ran?’ says DI Currie.

  ‘Yes!’ he says, his voice full of elation. ‘She jumped down. She said ow. She dropped her phone. She picked it up. She said, “Thanks, Clive.” And she ran.’

  He feels a burst of euphoria at recovering the weird chunk of time missing between seeing her outside Lycra Man’s house and seeing her run down the street, the sound of her rubber soles against the cold, dry pavement.

  ‘And the woman across the street?’

  ‘I don’t remember. I don’t … She was …’

  And there it was, retrieved like an old photo dropped down the back of a sofa: the missing piece.

  ‘She was talking to the man across the road. The man who goes running. The, you know, the psychologist. She was talking to him. She was shouting. She was crying. And that’s it,’ he says. ‘That’s as much as I remember.’

  The room falls silent. DI Currie writes something on a piece of paper. She clears her throat.

  ‘Well, thank you for remembering, Owen. I must say, it strikes me as rather odd, after all these days, all this time.’

  ‘It was when you said about the woman. I knew – I kind of knew there’d been something missing. But I couldn’t find the memories until you said about that other woman.’

  ‘It’s called a fragmentary blackout,’ says Barry, sitting upright. ‘Common after episodes of heavy drinking. And the lost memories can be triggered by someone filling in a missing detail.’

  Owen throws a look at Barry. There’s something different about him. About his demeanour, the tone of his voice. A new softness. A new care. It’s almost, Owen thinks, as if Barry believes him.

  DI Currie is going through her paperwork. ‘Did we send someone up on to the garage roof?’ she asks DI Henry.

  DI Henry consults his own paperwork, flicks through it blindly. ‘I’m not sure,’ he says. ‘I’ll check it out.’

  DI Currie slowly rests her hands on top of her paperwork and looks at Owen. She says, ‘Excuse us, please, we’ll be right back.’

  As they leave the room Barry turns to Owen and, for the first time since Owen was brought in on Friday morning, he smiles.