Chapter 57

CHRISTOPHER

‘Where’ve you been? I’ve been trying to get hold of you all morning.’

Amy sounded frustrated when Christopher finally answered her call.

He glanced at his phone and saw he’d missed eleven calls from her that day. He slipped the plastic mask from his face so he wouldn’t sound muffled; his skin felt clammy and was greasy to the touch.

‘Sorry, I fell asleep at my desk,’ he replied. He had fallen asleep, but it was actually on the sofa belonging to Number Fifteen. Dazed, he wiped the sleep from his eyes and looked around her sunlit room and then at his watch. It read 10.47am. His heart sank.

He’d never been this careless at a murder scene before, but juggling the two aspects of his life – Amy and his thirty killings plan –

had left him physically exhausted. He was reliant on a diet of protein bars, energy drinks and coffee to keep him awake and functioning, but they left him feeling restless and with frequent stomach cramps.

Christopher’s double life was taking a mental toll too. He had so much to hide from Amy, yet there was so much about his work that he longed to share with her. It left him divided; there’d even been moments when he’d contemplated disclosing his plans in an attempt to convince himself that, if she truly loved him, she would understand. But when it came to it, he couldn’t trust that he had read her correctly, that she would forgive him. And she was hastily becoming too integral a part of his life to risk dispensing with.

‘They’ve found a thirteenth body,’ Amy whispered down the phone.

‘The papers don’t know and I’m not supposed to tell anyone but you will never guess who it is.’

The waitress who served us at the restaurant last week, he wanted to say. That pretty girl with the nose ring. I was going to kill her anyway, but I like to think I killed her for us as something to share. Now you have blood on your hands too.

‘I’ve no idea,’ he said, and rose to his feet to stretch his spine and stiff neck.

‘It was the waitress from the restaurant we went to last week, do you remember?’

‘No, I don’t think so.’

‘Pretty girl with dark hair and a nose ring.’

‘Ahh yes, I do now. Shit, what happened to her?’

‘Same as all the others. She was strangled and laid out in her kitchen. He tore the ring out too, the sick bastard.’

Christopher made his way into the kitchen and glared at Number Fifteen lying in the same position he’d left her on the floor. Seven hours after her death her face had sunken, her skin was grey and, for a reason he couldn’t explain, she had already begun to attract flies. He checked his pocket to make sure he had taken the two photographs of her and, to his relief, he had. A picture of how she looked right now would ruin his album’s aesthetic.

‘Poor girl,’ Christopher said, and flicked through his backpack to make sure he had packed everything he’d brought. He removed a lint roller and began to manoeuvre it across every inch of the sofa where he’d slept.

‘I recognised her as soon as I saw the photograph, which at least sped up the identification process.’

‘And are you OK?’

‘I think so; it just brought the investigation a little closer to home.’

You have no idea just how close to home you are already.