‘Sanity Line, how can I help you?’ Laura smiled as she answered the phone. Today had been a good day and she was enjoying her evening shift. She got things off her chest with Detective Preston and, as if fate had intervened, her application to join the police had progressed to the next stage. It felt great to be moving on to better things. Her dealings with Matthew had given her the dig in the ribs she needed. Life was short, and her conversation with Ruby had put things in perspective. But her smile faded as a man’s voice responded on the other side of the line.

‘It’s me, Matthew,’ he replied, the words crawling off his tongue. ‘It’s so good to hear your voice, Laura. I really need to talk.’

Laura’s stomach lurched at the sound of his name. She swallowed back the bile rising in her throat and told herself to calm down. The killer had been arrested. Her uncle had told her. So how was he calling her? She reminded herself that she was safe, tucked away in a building covered by CCTV. She was anonymous. Wasn’t she? The sound of her name rolling off his tongue made her shudder in her chair. Quickly, she reached for the plastic bottle of water on her desk. ‘Hello, Matthew,’ she said, tipping the liquid down her throat as she awaited his response. Her eyes scanned the desk for a paper and pen. No answer. She had to keep the chatter up. ‘How are you?’ she continued, but her voice sounded strangely high-pitched as she spoke. She reminded herself to act normally. She had made a promise to her uncle that she would try and glean any information that she could. She listened for background sounds but all she could hear was the sound of his feet shuffling back and forth.

‘I’m bad, real bad,’ Matthew said. ‘I feel sick to the core.’

Laura put a hand over the telephone mouthpiece as her breath shuddered in response. Was he with the victim now? Calling from his hotel room? Was that where he had been calling from all along? Her heart pounded a warm beat behind her ribcage, and more than ever, she felt ill-equipped to deal with this call. But Matthew was too caught up in his own emotions to pick up on her anxiety. She took a calming breath then started again. ‘Would you like to talk about it?’

But all she could hear were Matthew’s muffled sobs.

‘I thought I was doing the right thing, but now everything has changed and it makes me sick. I don’t know what to do.’

‘You can talk to me,’ Laura said, resisting the urge to ask him who he was. She could not spook him. Slowly, slowly catchy monkey, she told herself, listening in for every sound.

‘I met this girl, from the dating site. Her name is Abby. God, I shouldn’t be telling you this…’ Matthew’s voice died off into a strangled whine.

‘It’s OK,’ Laura said, soothingly. ‘It’s just you and me here.’ She wanted to create a sense of intimacy between them, make him believe he could confide anything in her. Today he sounded needy, so different to his call before. ‘I won’t be shocked, whatever you say. What happened with Abby? Where did you meet?’ She looked over her shoulder to check that nobody was listening to her call. They were short-staffed, as usual, with only Joseph manning the other lines. Sitting across from her with his head bowed, he seemed too wrapped up in his own caller to pay any attention to hers. It was just as well. Asking for an address was against protocols. She crossed her legs beneath her chair, feeling her muscles tense.

‘We…’ Matthew stuttered, ‘we went clubbing in Shoreditch but we didn’t stay long. She was desperate to get to our hotel room. She wasn’t drinking. She didn’t want drugs. She just wanted sex. There was a real urgency to it, like it was something she had to get over with. I’ve never met anyone like her before.’

‘And you didn’t want sex?’ Laura said, her heart beating so hard she could almost feel it through the thin layers of her blouse.

‘No, I didn’t. But when we got to the room, she pounced on me, pulling at my trousers to get them off. When I didn’t respond, she turned nasty, saying I was at fault. The dirty slag. She was the one cheating on her partner, not me!’

‘What happened?’ Laura said, bracing herself for the answer.

Matthew’s response was immediate, his voice gaining in strength as he relayed what he had done. ‘I hit her, and kept hitting her until she passed out. Then I tied her up. I took some drugs. Took some photos. I didn’t do anything she didn’t deserve.’

Laura wondered if he had amputated Abby’s finger but it was a question she couldn’t bring herself to ask. Should she tell Matthew that what he did was wrong? Would her judgement make him hang up the phone? She remembered DS Preston’s words. No judgement. ‘What happened next?’ she asked, choosing the safest response of all.

‘I did what I had to do. The next part of the plan. Afterwards she came to. I took off her gag. She didn’t scream. But she told me… she told me…’ a muffled sob crossed the line. ‘I didn’t know. I didn’t know.’

‘What did she say?’ Laura said, her arm rigid as she pressed the phone to her ear.

‘She said she was pregnant. I was minutes away from killing an unborn child.’ He gasped for one breath, then another.

‘Slow your breathing,’ Laura said. ‘Tell me where she is. We can make all of this OK.’

‘How can you?’ Matthew said, panic driving another sudden inhalation of breath. ‘She knows who I am. I’ll go to prison. If Mason gets a hold of me, he’ll kill me for what I’ve done.’ He exhaled loudly down the line. ‘It’s bad enough I got involved with a man, but now a pregnant woman? I’m done for. There’s no point in living any more.’

‘No wait, we’re friends, aren’t we?’ Laura said, her pulse racing. She could not let him go. Not now. ‘You’ve confided so much in me, please don’t go, let me help you. Tell me where she is.’

‘It’s too late for that now,’ Matthew said. ‘I have to finish what I started. I don’t want to kill her or the baby, but what choice do I have? I’m sorry. I wanted to explain that I’m not a monster. God forgive me, I’m going to do this, I’ve got to.’

‘No Matthew, wait!’ Laura shouted, but it was too late. All she could hear was the low hum of a dead line.