She waited in the silence of the bedroom. He knocked on the door again, then for a third time a minute after that, before finally conceding defeat. Even so, Amanda waited a good minute before she looked back out of the window to check that he’d definitely gone, and saw him walking back to the road to where his car was parked and getting inside. He drove for twenty yards and turned round in the front car park of the local pub – a dank little place that looked like a scout hut called The Crooked Ship, which she’d never been inside – before driving back towards the road up to Inverness.

Moving quickly, Amanda hurried back downstairs and over to the front door. It took her a good thirty seconds to release all the dead bolts, locks and the two chains that ran up the frame and kept her barricaded and safe in the cottage. The locksmith had thought her mad when he’d come round to fit them all, but then he hadn’t known her story. Being attacked by a killer with a knife in your own home is going to make anyone paranoid, especially a single woman living by herself.

When she was outside, Amanda took a deep breath. It was a mild afternoon and the sun was trying to come out from behind a cluster of light clouds, and she suddenly felt good about the world for the first time in what seemed like a long while. She crossed the road, nodding at an old lady in a headscarf who was posting a letter, before joining the footpath that ran round the back of the pub, which would take her in the direction of the river.

The camera Keogh had planted in Amanda Rowan’s garden was motion-sensitive, and it kicked into life for the second time in three minutes, the feed on his laptop showing her opening her front door as she emerged from her house. He’d been thinking she wasn’t there, because a few minutes earlier a red-headed guy, whom Keogh could tell straight away was a copper, had knocked on the door several times and got no answer. But it seemed she was trying to avoid the guy, because she looked about quickly, as if she was checking the coast was clear, before triple-locking the door behind her and walking past the camera and through her front gate.

She was a good-looking woman, Keogh had to admit. Slim and lithe, with shoulder-length jet-black hair and a lean, angular face that suggested a mix of good breeding and plenty of time down at the gym. He would have gone for someone like her once, and she would probably have gone for him. No longer. Not with his face all cut up. Still, it seemed a shame that she had to die, and for just a quick second he experienced a twinge of guilt as some long-ago conscience came back to haunt him. He ruthlessly forced the guilt from his mind. This was business. And it was a business he was good at.

Keogh picked up the VH1 radio and spoke into the mouthpiece. ‘The target’s on the move. Get ready.’

Feeling a small but perceptible twinge of excitement, he switched on the Land Rover’s engine and pulled away.

Nine

Today 16.03

WALKING RELAXED AMANDA. It gave her space to think and, as she made her way down the footpath that would take her through thick pine forest down to the nearby river, she thought of her experience with The Disciple, and the dramatic effect he’d had on her life. She could picture her husband vividly, tied naked to the tub chair in the spare room, drenched seemingly from head to foot in blood, the ruined, tortured body of his lover lying almost at his feet. It was an image that would be etched on her brain for as long as she lived.

If she was brutally honest, she and George had never had a good marriage. They’d met online on a dating website. Amanda had always sworn blind that she’d never resort to online dating but, after a long period of single life, followed by a rocky five-year relationship, which had gone on at least four years too long, she’d finally relented. She’d had a good dozen dates, most of whom had been totally unsuitable, before she and George had hooked up. He wasn’t particularly good-looking. A big man, running to fat, with a ruddy complexion that owed more to good than clean living, and thinning hair, the first impressions weren’t good, particularly as – like so many men on those dating websites – he didn’t look a great deal like his photo, and was almost ten years older than her. But he had kind eyes, and a strong demeanour, and he’d made her feel good.

For the first date, they’d gone for a drink in his local in Old Street, and in spite of Amanda’s misgivings, they’d quickly hit it off. A second date had followed, this time in the far plusher surroundings of BamBou in Charlotte Street (she’d told him she liked Thai food), and a month later he’d proposed to her. He called her the best thing that had ever happened to him – the woman he’d been seeking the whole of his adult life.

Amanda should never have said yes. She didn’t love him. She liked him – he made her feel secure – and, she had to admit, the fact that he was an investment banker with plenty of money didn’t hurt either. But there was no passion, no desire. No hunger.

However, after years and years of trying to find the right man and failing, she wanted to settle down. She wanted to have children, too, and knew that at thirty-five the clock was beginning to tick loudly. George would make a good father and a solid husband. He was long-term material.

But it hadn’t worked out like that. George hadn’t been able to get her pregnant. He had a low sperm count. So they’d tried IVF and that hadn’t worked either. He’d also turned out to be a boring workaholic who wanted her to be a homemaker rather than a career woman, even if there was no one there to make a home for. They’d ended up moving out to the country, and she’d given up her job as a market research analyst in the West End. To be fair, she hadn’t been too bothered about that, but country life – especially country life in the middle of the woods, with none of her friends around – had bored her senseless. And when the dream of children had disappeared, followed closely by the discovery of his affair, so too had any hopes of saving the marriage.

And now there was no marriage to save. George was gone. And, though she could never admit it to anyone, she felt a guilty sense of liberation.

It was when she came out on the road a couple of hundred yards west of the village, just before the start of the forest, that Amanda saw it. The black four-by-four that had driven past her cottage a couple of hours earlier parked twenty yards ahead of her. There was another car parked behind it, and a uniformed police officer was leaning in the Land Rover’s window talking to the driver. It was clear he’d been stopped, and she wondered why, although she was relieved that he had been. She didn’t like the idea of suspicious-looking men driving round the area, not after everything that had happened to her.

To reach the footpath at the beginning of the forest, she needed to pass both cars and, as she approached them, she experienced a feeling of unease. Something didn’t feel quite right, and for a moment she considered simply turning round, heading back home, and triple-locking the door behind her. Even though this was the main road to Tayleigh, the nearest town, very little traffic passed along this way. It made her suddenly feel very vulnerable.

But Amanda didn’t turn round. Instead, she told herself to stop being so paranoid. There was no way The Disciple knew she was here and, whoever it was in the four-by-four, he wasn’t going to do anything with a police officer breathing down his neck.

As she drew level with the cars, the police officer turned round and smiled at her. He had a chubby baby face that didn’t quite sit right on his broad muscular shoulders, and there was something about his smile she didn’t like. It looked almost like a leer.