run off and tell the police.’
‘You were in my house!’
‘I was trying to help.’
‘I don’t need your help, Leon. Please just leave me alone and don’t call again.’
‘Listen to me for a minute: the person who broke into your house on Wednesday night. You were alone. He could have attacked you, made you give him what he was looking for. But he didn’t do that, he slipped away into the night.’ He pauses for a second and I can almost feel his hot breath on my ear. ‘Why do you think he did that?’
Is he talking about himself? I’ve heard about people who refer to themselves in the third person; it’s a sign of extreme narcissism, of dangerously large ego, an inflated sense of their own importance. The traits of a sociopath. And an associated trait: that they’re fluent liars.
‘I don’t know, Leon, why did you do that?’
A sigh comes down the line. ‘It wasn’t me. But somebody thought you weren’t going to be home on Wednesday night. He was spooked when he realised you were still in the house So he came back the next day when he knew you wouldn’t be there.’
I inch closer to the window so I can see out into the car park again. At least my room is on the first floor. Leon has moved closer, his dark outline visible among the shadows directly underneath my window. The ego that prompted him to call me on the hotel phone direct to my room – to surprise me, unsettle me, show me how clever he is – has also given me an opportunity, I realise. I pull up the keypad on my mobile and press nine three times, my thumb hovering over the green call button. If I can keep him on the landline and somehow direct the police here, they might be able to arrest him before he can get away. Box him into the car park, where there’s only one way in and out.
I press call, 999 on the display. I don’t put it on loudspeaker in case he hears it when the call connects.
‘I know about you, Leon.’ Matt Simms’s words come back to me: Total fruit loop. Psycho. You want to stay well away from him. ‘I know what you’ve done.’
He ignores me. ‘Did you tell anyone your house would be empty that night?’
‘No,’ I say. ‘No one. Not even my best friend.’
‘What do you think he was looking for?’
Keep him talking.
‘For the baby,’ I say quietly. ‘For Mia.’
‘So you know she’s in mortal danger.’
The call on my mobile connects and a tinny female voice asks me which service I require.
‘The police,’ I say loudly. I leave a pause before adding, ‘They told me about the Ghost.’
The tinny voice replies but I can’t hear her properly. ‘The police are incompetent,’ Leon says in my other ear. ‘Their investigation into the Ghost was riddled with it, mainly because your friend Detective Inspector Gilbourne is an incompetent, old-school cop desperate to cover up his own failings. Desperate to conceal the fact that the case was botched from the start when he let Dominic Church slip through his fingers. Church is a clever guy, I’ll give him that. But trust me, I’ve been researching and writing about his kind for almost twenty years, I’ve lived their cases, lived their crimes, and I know a psychopath when I see one.’
‘So where do you fit in, Leon?’
‘I can help you.’
‘Help me?’
‘We can help each other. I protect you from Dominic Church, you can get to the baby, take her somewhere safe. Church is never going to allow that second DNA test to be done.’ He pauses, his voice dropping lower. ‘Which means her time is almost up. And if she disappears, the story disappears with her, do you see?’
‘What on earth makes you think I’d want to help you?’
‘Because it’s the only way, and because you’re a good person, Ellen. I trust you. Can you trust me?’
I raise the mobile and hear the police operator’s voice again, loud and insistent as if she’s repeating herself.
– street address or location if you are in immediate –
‘You attacked me, Leon,’ I say. ‘Now you’ve tracked me to the Northolt Premier Inn and you’re threatening me again.’
‘Of course I’m not threatening you, I’m trying to—’ He stops abruptly, and when he comes back on the line there is a note of disappointment in his voice. ‘Who else are you talking to, Ellen?’
‘You’re in the car park at the back