If I could indeed tempt him into turning his back, I would certainly hit him, but I had few illusions about my ability to do any serious damage. I was more likely to miss him completely and bury the axe in my monitor. At least I’d kill the awful repetition of my own tearful entreaties, followed by mute obedience, that filled the screen behind him. The images, many in close-up, were worse than anything I’d imagined.

I had to try twice before any words came. “They’ve done a psychological profile on you that says if you filmed me, then you’ll have filmed the women you murdered as well. They say you’re an addictive trophy killer…you hang on to evidence that will convict you because you need to keep reminding yourself-”

The speed with which MacKenzie’s fist whipped out to flick a knife blade in front of Peter’s face stopped me in my tracks. “Stay where you are,” he warned. “I don’t give a shit for this man’s sight…but you probably do.” With his other hand, he felt behind him for the CD-ROM button. “You talk too much, Connie,” he said, glancing round to retrieve a disk from the open tray. “All women talk too much. It does my fucking head in. I liked you better when your tongue was tied.”

He played the point of the knife between Peter’s terrified eyes while he slid the DVD into his pocket. “What else does this profile say?”

Christ! Which was better? Back off or keep going? How much did he know about psychological profiling? What was more likely to tip him over the edge? Something anodyne or something brutal? I dredged facts from the research I’d done. “That you’re an organized killer…a vengeful stalker who blames women for your inability to make relationships…that you target your victims carefully and plan your murders to avoid detection.” I kept my eyes on the blade. “That your socioeconomic group is at the lower end of the scale…you’re unlikely to be married…possibly delusional…have no interest in personal hygiene…” I fell silent because his aggression suddenly vanished.

He lowered the knife to the table and assessed me critically. “You’re skin and bones, feather,” he said gently. “What happened to you?”

“I haven’t been eating. I feel sick if I put something in my mouth.”

“You think about me then?”

“All the time.”

“Go on,” he encouraged, placing the knife on the desk to reach for a canvas bag that I hadn’t noticed within the embrasure of the desk. I watched him pull back the flap to put my father’s mobile and the DVD inside, and with a small shock I recognized it as my own bag.

“At night, I wake up screaming because I’m afraid you’re in the room,” I said in a monotone. “During the day I have panic attacks because I see a dog or smell something that reminds me of you.” Inside the bag, I could see a pair of miniature binoculars that I was sure belonged to my father. “There isn’t a single minute in twenty-four hours when Keith MacKenzie doesn’t fill my mind.”

I lapsed into silence again because I didn’t know what he was doing. Part of me wondered if he was preparing to leave; the other part remained intensely suspicious. His only way out was past me, but I wasn’t so naïve as to lower the axe to let him pass. Nor was I prepared to separate myself from Jess and Peter. However incapacitated they were, I drew a confidence from their presence that I wouldn’t have had if I’d faced MacKenzie alone.

My concern now was Jess. She was beginning to tire. On the fringes of my vision, she kept jerking her head back to keep her shoulders in contact with the walls. Peter’s fear for her was intense. He doubled his efforts to free his hands, and I saw his desperation every time he looked from her to me.

MacKenzie saw it, too, and smiled as he jerked his head towards the stinger. “It’s a neat little thing, isn’t it? I assume it was meant for me, feather. If your friend’s unlucky, the nails will get her in the belly. I’ve seen more soldiers die of gut wounds than anything else. The filth from the intestine infects the blood.” He gave an indifferent shrug. “It’s your choice. You can come in and move the trap…or you can let her fall. I’ll even make a deal with you. As soon as you’re through the doorway, I’ll leave.”

Peter nodded violently, begging me to obey. I forced my tongue across my lips so that I could generate some noise. “JESS!” I cried. “Listen to me! You must concentrate! I can’t come in. Do you understand?” Her head ducked a millimetre in response. I went on more calmly: “I don’t care how tired you are or how much it hurts, you stay upright. At least you’re on your feet and not cowering in a corner. Understand?” Another dip of her head.

I don’t know when I realized that I wasn’t as afraid as I’d expected to be. I showed physical signs of it in my parched mouth and sweating hands, but that had more to do with fear of being taken by surprise than fear of MacKenzie himself. Rightly or wrongly, I felt it was he who was isolated, and I who was in control.

He was smaller than I remembered and a great deal seedier, with stubble on his jaw and a shirt that looked as if it hadn’t been changed for days. I could smell it from ten metres away. It stank of dirt and sweat and caused my only genuine falters when the nausea of memory scorched the back of my throat. For the most part, I wondered how someone so unprepossessing could have gained such a hold over my imagination.

The policeman who interviewed me later asked me why I hadn’t accepted MacKenzie’s offer to leave. “Because I knew he wouldn’t,” I answered.

“Dr. Coleman’s less sure.”

“Peter was frightened for Jess-it’s what he wanted to believe. All I could see was that we’d all be more vulnerable if I did what MacKenzie wanted. While I was free and barring the exit, he was the one in the trap…but if I’d entered the room the dynamics would have changed completely.”

“Weren’t you worried that Ms. Derbyshire would fall?”

“Yes…but I felt she could hang on a bit longer. In any case, I couldn’t have moved the trap easily. I’d have had to look at it-which would have meant taking my eyes off MacKenzie-and he’d have jumped me immediately. I don’t see I had a choice except to stay where I was.”

“Even when Dr. Coleman was threatened?”

“Even when,” I agreed. “It’s easier to understand if you think of it as a game of chess. As long as I controlled the doorway to the hall, MacKenzie’s moves were limited.”

The policeman eyed me curiously. He’d introduced himself as Detective Inspector Bagley and, despite my request that he call me Connie, he insisted on the more formal Ms. Burns. He was ginger-haired and stocky, not much older than I was, and, though he remained courteous throughout, his suspicion of me was obvious. “Were you that cold-blooded at the time?”

“I tried to be. It wasn’t always easy…but I couldn’t see what good it would do any of us if I didn’t stay one step ahead of him.”

Bagley nodded. “Did you and Ms. Derbyshire make the stinger, Ms. Burns? Was that part of the plan to stay one step ahead?”

“No.”

“According to Dr. Coleman, MacKenzie said the stinger was meant for him. Are you sure you didn’t plan a trap that went wrong?”

“No,” I said honestly. “In any case, I don’t think Peter heard MacKenzie right. He speaks with a very strong accent. The way I heard him, he said it was meant for me.”

“So it was MacKenzie who made it? Along with the other five we found?”

“He must have done.”

Bagley consulted some notes. “Dr. Coleman says you told MacKenzie that your plan was to kill him.”

“Only when he asked me what I’d do if he used the axe on Jess. I didn’t have any plan when I first went into the hall except to try to convince him the police were on their way.”

“That’s not the impression Dr. Coleman received, Ms. Burns. He says you knew what you were doing from the moment you appeared in the doorway. He also says MacKenzie had the same impression.”