He found the letter from the prison. It was tucked behind the terracotta plant pot, with the shrivelled-up spider plant inside it, on the kitchen windowsill. It mentioned the words cancer and end stage. It was a request from John to see them both one last time. He’d shown it to his mum and begged her to let him go with her. After hours of arguing and crying she’d finally said yes.

The prison looked much smaller than it had two years ago, but that was because they were in a different part than the last time and he was so much older. Two years made a big difference; he knew things now that he didn’t understand before. His mum had said she was only visiting John because he was ill and in the hospital wing. He still didn’t understand the hold that John had over his mum. He was no longer scared of the man who sat there, chained up behind a plastic table, staring at him as if he were devouring every inch of his body.

He was also much wiser; he had studied his mum’s office from top to bottom whenever she was out of the house. The pictures on the board had changed; he didn’t like the new ones. They were grainy black-and-white images of kids of many different ages; all of them were alive and wearing old-fashioned clothes. He’d desperately wanted to ask her why she’d taken the photos of his dead girls away, but of course he couldn’t. She would know that he’d been going in there and would probably freak out.

There was a bookshelf above the desk and on it were three different books with his mum’s name on. He’d found a couple of boxes in the corner of the room underneath sheets of paper, with spare copies of the books inside, and he’d taken one of each. Stashing them in his bedroom, he read them whenever he could. He didn’t understand a lot of what she’d written in them, but he liked reading about the murders. He wondered if his mum felt the same way as he did and maybe that was why she liked writing about dead people so much. He’d tried to quiz his friends at school to see if everyone had a morbid obsession with death.

None of his friends had ever seen a dead body, apart from Jake, who’d had to go and visit his gran at the funeral home when she’d died. He’d said it was horrible – that she hadn’t looked anything like his gran had the day before. She’d been yellow and looked like she was made of wax. Jake said he’d almost peed his pants when his dad had told him to give her one last kiss goodbye. He’d listened to Jake, fascinated, and wished he had grandparents who would die so he could go and see what they looked like. He didn’t say this to Jake because Jake had gone pale and his eyes had got all watery just talking about his gran.

Right there and then he’d known that he was very different from most kids, probably most people. They were all scared of death and dead people, whereas he was fascinated with them and couldn’t get enough. He needed to see a real dead person – he wanted to see if they looked as beautiful as his girls had. He wanted to touch one, stroke their skin, run his fingers through their hair. He wouldn’t think twice about kissing one; he wanted to know what it would feel like to put his lips on theirs. He thought about Carrie. He would have kissed her.

He’d searched through the drawers and the filing cabinet in the office until he found a folder with the title The Carnival Queen Killer. His heart had raced as he’d pulled it out and found the photographs inside, holding them in his trembling hands. He hadn’t been able to do this before in case he wasn’t able to put them back onto the corkboard in the right position, and his mum had noticed. He was clever and he knew he had to cover his tracks whenever he came in here. He’d gone through the pictures until he came to one of his beloved Carrie, and he clutched it to his chest. He had to have it. He’d put the others back into the folder and shut the drawer.

Then he’d sneaked out of the office and into his own room, where he pulled the tin off the shelf in his wardrobe in which he kept the stuff he didn’t want his mum to see. He was already taller than she was, so she never looked on the top shelf. In the tin were a couple of detective magazines; the semi-naked women on the cover were trussed up with rope and they made him almost as excited as the picture of Carrie. The only thing was, they were clearly alive and he much preferred them dead. There was something very special about having complete control over another person.

They went through the same process as before, with his mum having her bag searched. Then he was patted down; this time he didn’t have an old yellow car in his pocket. All he had was the Polaroid camera that he’d got for his birthday around his neck. His mum had told him he wouldn’t be allowed to take it in, but he’d insisted. He wanted a photograph of John to add to his collection. He knew that his mum was obsessed with him, but she wouldn’t tell him what he’d done except that it was very bad. The guards had laughed at him with his little camera and asked what he wanted it for. He told them he was going to be a reporter when he was older, and then a scuffle broke out behind them. The guards intervened and they were waved through the gates.

If he’d thought it smelt bad the last time he’d been here, it was nothing compared to how it smelt now. The sweet, sickly stench that greeted them was one he wouldn’t forget and one that he would become all too familiar with. He didn’t know that death lingered in the air; if he had, he would have been ecstatic at the possibility of seeing a dead body. A nurse had come to meet them and walked them along a huge ward with beds either side. Some of them had the curtains drawn around them. Almost all of them were filled by men, coughing, moaning and groaning. There weren’t enough nurses to look after them and the ones that were there were rushing around from bed to bed. She stopped abruptly at the last cubicle and drew the curtain back to allow them to pass through.

The huge man who had towered over everyone two years ago was nothing more than a shrivelled up shell of what he once was. His mum stepped forward and nodded at the guard standing next to him. He walked forwards, as close to the bed as his mum would let him go; he had to see for himself. John smelt bad – as if he were rotting from the inside out. His skin was taut and grey, tinged with yellow. He felt his mum grab the collar of his jacket and drag him backwards. The shadow of the man in the bed opened one eye and stared at him.

‘You’ve grown, kid. Are you still a mute?’

He shook his head. ‘You’ve shrunk.’

John began to laugh, which quickly turned into a coughing fit. When he got control of himself he looked at his mum. ‘I want to speak to the kid alone.’

She shook her head.

‘It’s my last request. You can’t say no.’

She stepped forward. ‘Your last request? Did you give any of those girls a last request? Did you give Linda her last request?’

‘No, I didn’t, but we both know I’m a sick fuck and you’re not. The guard can stay – the kid will be okay. You go and get a cup of tea.’

She was about to argue when he looked at her. ‘Please, Mum, I want to speak to John. Let me speak to him.’

The look of hurt she gave him seared his heart, but he wanted to hear what the man in front of him had to say. His fear of him had given way to fascination and he realised that John could see it in his eyes. Reluctantly, she turned to follow the nurse to the small staffroom across the ward. The guard glanced down at John, who nodded at him. He bent over and handcuffed John’s wrists to the sides of the metal bed, then stepped away, giving them some privacy. He lifted up the camera and paused, waiting to see if John objected. He didn’t, so he took a snap.

‘Something has changed with you. I think that I already know what it is, but you can tell me. I’ve only ever seen it twice before. Once whenever I look at myself in the mirror. The other when I had a cell opposite a man who’d killed more women than I had. You know that I won’t tell a soul. I’m dying – if I last another couple of days it will be too long. I’m going to meet my maker and I don’t think he’ll want me. Hell, I don’t think the devil wants me.’

‘I found some pictures at home.’

John nodded, smiled, encouraging him. ‘What sort of pictures?’

‘I think they might be yours.’

John paused for a moment.

‘So now you know that I’m a monster, yet you still want to sit here and talk to me. Why?’

He looked over both shoulders to make sure no one could see him, stepped closer to the bed, then leant towards John and whispered in his ear. ‘I like them, a lot.’

John looked at the boy on the verge of turning into a man in front of him and felt a surge of pride rush through his veins.

‘You’re going to be very special.’

He nodded. ‘I know I am. I’ve known it all along.’

‘I’m going to give you some advice now, kid. You can’t tell another soul. Other people won’t understand and you’ll get locked up, in a place like this. You have to be a different person to the world and keep your true self hidden inside. Very few people see the enjoyment in death – if you want to experience it for yourself then make sure you never talk about it to anyone. You have to think outside the box, think about all the factors that could get you caught. I didn’t – I was too busy enjoying myself to think about the evidence I left behind. If you want to be able to do it and not get caught, be very careful.’

John began to cough and splutter, gasping for breath, and a nurse came running over.

He felt a strong hand on his shoulder as it pulled him away from the bed. He spun around to see the big guard standing behind him. His mum came running to see what the commotion was, fear etched across her face. She grabbed him, hugging him close. The nurse shouted at the guard to remove the handcuffs, whilst she placed an oxygen mask over John’s nose and mouth. Then she turned to them. ‘You have to leave; that’s it now. Visiting is over.’

His mum gripped his hand, clearly relieved to be able to leave. He turned to take one last look at the man who had changed from a monster into his hero, and he grinned at him. John lifted a thumb and smiled back. They left and he slipped the Polaroid photograph into his pocket. It was one for his special album.