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I think back to the horribleness of it all and I agree with him. What the hell
was
wrong with me? How could I have thought it was a good idea, to go on hook-up sites and to sex parties …? The threesome with Katherine – I can’t believe she’s dead. Her throaty giggle, and smooth skin … but I’m not gay. I didn’t like it, and I would never do it again. That Paul guy was foul, I felt defiled afterwards. So why did I go to that nasty, tawdry sex party too? It occurs to me how persuasive Kath really was. I would never have done any of that stuff on my own.

‘I thought I had no chance. But then I did! Do you remember that night when we made love, Becky? It was the best night of my whole life. You were incredible; so beautiful. You tasted like dark bitter chocolate and your skin was burning with a million tiny fires that I tried to put out with my tongue …’

‘I remember,’ I tell him, trying to sound eager. It was a stupid mistake, a moment of weakness on my part. He’d come round late one night asking for his
Breaking Bad
box set, and I was feeling excited and distracted, emailing Paul. After Gary went back to his place, I noticed he’d left the box set behind and, although I originally decided not to, I changed my mind and took it across to his flat. He’d been delighted to see me, and we had a drink together and ended up in bed. It was all right, as I recall. He didn’t last very long and … I don’t want to think about it. Not now. Not ever again.

But if he still loves me then perhaps I have a chance …

He looks at me now with accusing eyes. ‘You didn’t want me, though, not even after that incredible night. You told me you were going out on a date with Katherine. That was when I bought you that new iMac. You were so naïve, thinking you’d really won it in some competition you never even entered! Honestly, Becky. How could you be so daft? All I had to do was install a bit of software that connected your iMac to my computer – any idiot who’s ever worked in IT could do it – and, guess what? I could read all your emails, watch your screen in real-time. I just packaged it all back up and left it outside your door with a letter telling you that you won it in a competition that all CupidsWeb users were automatically entered in.

‘Every night, I watched you surf the net, instant-message Katherine and your sister Amy – until you had that big row with her – I knew because you told Katherine about it. I saw you update your social networks, browse Casexual.com. I watched you apply for Orchid Blue and arrange to go to a sex party with Katherine. I almost vomited at the thought of you taking part in an orgy. I decided I had to go too. I applied and got accepted, even though it cost a fortune.

‘It was a masked party, so I thought I’d be safe. I had my hair cut. Even got a sodding fake tan to match the fake name I gave when I booked. I didn’t want you to recognize me. I was so nervous. I really thought I might be able to get to have sex with you again. But then it all went wrong. As soon as I walked in, I saw Lewis. Even with the mask on, I knew it was him. I hadn’t seen him for fifteen years, not since … that night. I was so shocked. I didn’t know what to do. I hoped he wouldn’t recognize me – although
you
did, didn’t you? I bet you were shocked to see me there.’

I nod. ‘Shocked’ had been an understatement. That’s why I had legged it as soon as I saw him. It just seemed so wrong, on so many levels, that the next-door neighbour with a crush on me had shown up at this expensive sex party.

I don’t tell Gary that, though.

‘Katherine was chatting me up, remember? Then you came over, saw me, and stormed out.’

Gary’s face falls at the memory. ‘I knew then I had no chance with you. And it got worse – frigging Lewis saw you rip off your mask on the way out, and decided that you were his next conquest. He comes over to us, asking all about you and I thought, oh, shit, I remember what happened last time he had that expression on his face … he was obsessed. So obsessed that he didn’t clock it was me at all, with my mask on, fifteen years since he’d last seen me, which was something at least … He was banging on about you being like Cinderella, not even leaving a glass slipper … twat. I was so scared for you. I left the party after you did, thinking that whatever happened I had to make sure he didn’t find out who you were.’

Over the next couple of weeks, Gary says, he continued to spy on me on the iMac he’d given me. I’d emailed Kath saying I didn’t want to go to any more Orchid Blue parties or use Casexual any more. I told her about the epiphany I’d had at that party, how disgusted I felt with myself and that I didn’t want to do it any more.

Gary was delighted, he says, and thrilled that he hadn’t been the only reason for me leaving so hastily. But then, he says, something terrible happened: I got a message through CupidsWeb from a guy called Daniel. Daniel said he loved my profile, told me all this stuff about how he was tired of empty sex and wanted to find a soul mate, and we arranged to meet.

And Gary was reading all this on his own computer! I feel sick at the thought of Gary having read all my lovey-dovey emails with Daniel.

Then I feel even sicker, thinking what Daniel had in store for me all along – if Gary can be believed.

‘I watched you check out his profile, Becks, and when I saw his photos and realised Daniel was really Lewis, I freaked. I couldn’t work out how he’d found you at first. I panicked. I couldn’t tell you about him, obviously.’

‘How did he find me?’ I ask.

Gary grits his teeth. ‘Your stupid friend, I assume. Katherine must have told him at the party about you both using CupidsWeb.’

I nod slowly. I suppose that must have been it. I wish, from the bottom of my heart, that I’d never met Kath. Or Gary. Or Daniel/Lewis.

Gary starts crying. His shoulders heave and quiver and his nose turns red and starts running. ‘I had to watch you, Becky, falling in love with fucking
Lewis
! You were messaging Kath, saying how wonderful he was, how different to all the others, how you were falling in love with him! I couldn’t bear it!’

Gary’s voice rises to a wail and I look at him, astonished and fearful. Does he really expect me to feel sorry for him? ‘Anyway, I don’t want to talk about it any more.’

He puts a new strip of tape over my mouth, picks up my empty plate and leaves without asking me if I need to use the bathroom.

‘There’s someone here to see you.’

DS Bob Clewley spoke into the phone, glancing over at Amy, who sat fidgeting on the uncomfortable slippery faux-leather reception seats. Amy hadn’t been to Eastbourne since she was a child, though she had a vague memory of her and Becky playing in the amusement arcades on the pier. Becky had put all her money into the grabber machine, squealing with delight when she finally managed to get hold of a Snoopy toy. Becky still had that Snoopy in her bedroom.

Declan Adams came out to reception and gestured with his head for Amy to follow him, leading her to an interview room and instructing Bob to fetch Amy a cup of tea.

‘How are you doing?’ Declan asked.

Amy knew she looked rough. She hadn’t slept at all in the three days since Lewis Vine had abducted her. She had spent much of that time staring at the TV, wrapped in a blanket with Boris beside her. Sky News had rolling coverage of the goings-on at the ‘house of horror’ in Claygate, as body after body was dug up, an endless gallery of faces of missing women appearing on the screen, their families finally achieving some kind of closure – including the family of Amber Corrigan, whose purse had been found among Lewis’s possessions.

There was no closure for Amy. The phone and a bag had been the only trace of Becky, proof that she had encountered Lewis, along with hair containing her DNA in his car. On the phone, a message from Katherine, sent just after Amy had been to see her, asking Becky what she was up to. Then she had sent another text asking her why she hadn’t replied.

Have you gone away with Daniel?
Katherine asked.
I’m going to have to tell Amy if she keeps pestering me.

‘Lewis must have seen that text and realized Katherine could expose the email about Becky going away as a lie,’ Declan said. ‘So he had to deal with her – stop her talking to you. Looks like Fraser didn’t give her the fatal drugs after all.’

But so far not a single atom of Becky had been found inside the house, let alone a body. Police were scanning CCTV from the areas around Lewis’s house and office, trying to trace his movements over the weekend when Becky went missing, but he didn’t appear to have done anything except go to work, go home and, Amy discovered to her horror, spend one afternoon lurking outside her own flat.

Gary had been round both days since, making Amy soup that she didn’t eat and drinks that she couldn’t stomach. She begged him for every detail he knew about Lewis, but he claimed to be as shocked as she was about his friend’s secret life. He had met him a couple of years ago, he said, at a networking event, and had thought he seemed like a nice guy, someone who knew their stuff when it came to social networking. He deeply regretted introducing him to Amy. He had no idea how Lewis had encountered Becky, but he assumed he must have seen her once when he came to Gary’s flat, and maybe Gary had told him she used CupidsWeb – another thing he regretted. But he had no idea that Lewis was a psychopath – of course he didn’t.

‘No one ever does, do they?’ he said reasonably. ‘People always say serial killers seem normal and nice. I saw a programme about it on TV. They’re everywhere, living among us.’

She had shivered as he’d trailed off, realizing he’d said the wrong thing.

Last night, she’d asked Gary to stay – not for sex, but just to hold her. He respected her wishes, didn’t try anything, just held her in his strong arms. With him beside her, she was able to sleep at last.

Just before she woke she had a dream, a flashback to the fight at the moment that Lewis had fallen into the pool, dragging her with him. She awoke gasping for air. Sitting on the toilet a minute later, a memory from the dream came back to her. Just before Gary had Tasered Lewis, the psychopath had said something to him.

She went back into the bedroom and looked down at Gary, who was sleeping peacefully.

Then she went outside. Her beloved bike was parked by the kerb. Yesterday, she and Gary had gone round to Paul ‘TooledUp’ Halsall’s and told him in no uncertain terms that the bike was hers, that the agreement she’d signed was worthless. Gary had squared up to him until Paul had chucked the keys at Amy, snarling, ‘It’s a piece of shit anyway.’ Fortunately, he’d turned out not to be at all tooled up.

If only it was so easy to get Becky back.

Now here she sat in the interview room opposite Declan and Bob, a steaming mug of tea in front of her.

She took a deep breath. ‘When Gary and Lewis were fighting by the swimming pool, Gary said something to Lewis. You were yelling so loud, I couldn’t hear what he said.’

Declan shook his head. ‘Sorry, I didn’t hear either.’

‘But there was CCTV in the room, wasn’t there? I saw it when he flicked between the rooms, when he had me in the kitchen.’

‘Why do you think it’s important?’ asked Bob.

Amy sighed. ‘I don’t know. It was just, from the expression on his face, Lewis looked disappointed. And Gary – well, I could swear that he
smirked
. I’m sure he did. It didn’t come back to me until I replayed it in my head when I was in bed last night.’

‘And are you sure it wasn’t just a dream?’ Bob asked.

‘There’s only one way to find out,’ Declan said, getting up from the desk.

They sat and stared at the small monitor as Bob forwarded through the recording from Lewis’s pool room.

‘He had it set up to record twenty-four hours a day and to tape over the previous twenty-four hours every day. I guess he was scared of someone breaking in and finding what he’d been doing,’ Declan said. ‘Luckily, we found and stopped the system the other day.’

Amy watched Bob forward through the recording, hugging herself when it got to the point where Lewis took her through the pool room and opened the door to his underground flat. Bob fast-forwarded until they saw Declan and Gary appear, then onto the point where Lewis and Amy re-emerged. When they got to the fight beside the pool, he slowed it down. There was the moment when Gary, the camera pointing across the pool at his face, had said something to Lewis, just before Gary Tasered him. Bob stopped and rewound.

‘Can you zoom in?’ Amy said. ‘It’s too small.’ The camera had been mounted on the wall so it was only just possible to see Lewis’s lips move.

‘Let me try.’ Bob fiddled with the controls, zooming in on Lewis’s face.

‘It’s so pixellated,’ Amy said, frustrated. She was both relieved and horrified that she hadn’t misremembered the moment.

Declan peered at the screen, his nose just inches from it. ‘It’s impossible.’

‘We might be able to clean this up,’ Bob said, ‘and make it clearer.’

‘We need someone who can lip read,’ Declan said.

Bob looked at him across the desk. ‘What about that girl who works in analysis? The deaf one.’

‘Good idea.’

Bob left the room, leaving Declan and Amy staring at the frozen monochrome screen, Gary and Lewis suspended in the moment before Amy had plunged into the pool.

‘What do you know about Gary?’ Declan asked. ‘He’s your friend, isn’t he?’

Amy had to turn away from the screen, the memory of what had happened next was too painful. ‘I did suspect him of having something to do with Becky’s disappearance last week.’ She explained about the incident with Gary forgetting to double-lock the door. ‘But he convinced me it was an innocent mistake. He seems so nice and … normal.’

‘They often do,’ Declan said.

Nathan’s face entered Amy’s head and she nodded. ‘It’s just because he was friends with Lewis … I’m sure he is nice and normal. I mean, we know that Lewis is the killer. I just want to know what Gary said to him, and why.’

Bob re-entered the room with a young woman he introduced as Samantha. She sat down at the desk and peered at the screen, Bob zooming in as close as he could, fiddling with the picture to make it as crisp as possible. Amy watched Lewis’s lips move again and a cold finger traced its way up her spine. It was his expression, the disappointment in his eyes. Like his old friend had let him down.