Look at these pictures. This bastard's going to carry on capturing and torturing and killing until you catch him. Carol, this guy's a career killer. "
I walked boldly up the path and pressed Adam's doorbell. In the seconds before he answered the chime, I composed my face into what I believed was an apologetic smile. I could see the fuzzy outline of his head and shoulders as he walked down the hall. Then the door opened and we were face to face. He half smiled quizzically. As if he'd never noticed me before in his life.
"I'm sorry to bother you," I said.
"Only my car's broken down, and I don't know where there's a pay phone, so I wondered if I might use your phone to call the AA? I'll pay for the call, of course..." I let my voice trail away.
His smile broadened and relaxed, his dark eyes crinkling at the corners.
"No problem. Come in." He stepped back and I moved inside the door. He gestured down the hall. "There's a phone in the study.
Just on the right there. "
I moved slowly down the hall, ears alert for the sound of the front door closing behind me. As the lock snapped back into place, he added,
"There's nothing worse, is there?"
"I'll just look up the number," I said, pausing in the doorway to reach in my backpack. Adam kept on walking, so that when I pulled out the Mace spray, he was only a couple of feet away from me. It couldn't have been more perfect. I let him have it full in the face.
He roared in pain and stumbled back against the wall, hands clawing at his face. I moved in swiftly. One foot between his ankles, hands on his shoulders, a quick twist and down he went, face crushed into the carpet, gasping for breath. I was down on top of him in seconds, gripping one wrist and twisting his arm up his back while I snapped the handcuff over it. He was struggling against me by now, tears streaming down his face, but I managed to grab his other flailing arm and snap the other half of the cuffs on it.
His legs were thrashing under me, but my weight was enough to keep him pinned to the floor while I took a zip lock plastic bag from my backpack. I opened it, extracted a pad soaked in chloroform and clamped it over his nose and mouth. The sickly odour drifted upwards into my nostrils, making me feel slightly light-headed and queasy. I hoped the chloroform hadn't gone off; I'd had the bottle for a couple of years, ever since I'd stolen it from the dispensary on a Soviet ship where I'd spent the night with the first officer.
Adam struggled even' harder when he felt the cold compress cut off his access to the air, but within minutes his legs stopped their pointless thrashing. I waited a little longer, just to be on the safe side, then I rolled off and fastened his legs together with surgical tape. I returned the chloroform pad to its secure bag, then I taped Adam's mouth shut.
I stood up and took a deep breath. So far, so good. Next, I pulled on a pair of latex gloves and took stock. I am familiar with the theory of the French forensic scientist Edmond Locard, first demonstrated in a murder trial in 1912, that every contact leaves a trace; a criminal will always take something away from the scene of his crime and leave something behind. With this in mind, I had carefully chosen my wardrobe for today. I was wearing Levi jois, the same brand I'd seen Adam wear often. I'd topped it with a baggy V-necked cricket sweater, the exact double of one I'd watched him buy in Marks and Spencer a couple of weeks before. Any stray fib res I left behind would inevitably be ascribed to the contents of Adam's own wardrobe.
I took a quick, look round the study, pausing by his answering machine. It was one of the old-fashioned ones, with a single cassette tape. I opened the machine and helped myself to the tape. It would be nice to have a memory of his voice sounding normal; I knew that the soundtrack on the video wouldn't have that same relaxed quality.
The door to the garage was locked. I headed off up the stairs, where I found the jacket of his