He’d stolen the bicycle from a side street off the Gloucester Road. Bolt cutters dealt with the puny chain easily. He’d chosen this one because there’d been a helmet as well and he wanted to blend in. He’d made passes on the bike, past where she lived, biding his time in the cold damp morning on the common, letting the hunger grow, embracing it, allowing it to become him and him it. He cursed the weather. He hated the wet, preferred dry conditions for his work, but today there would be no choice. And the poor visibility would undoubtedly play to his advantage, blurring details, favouring stealth. Eventually, his patience had been rewarded in spades.

He’d toyed with the idea of confronting her on her doorstep. Now he knew exactly where she’d be. A risky gambit still; even this early there were too many people on the streets. But she’d emerged dressed for running. He smiled. It was all coming together. There’d been an inevitability about it ever since he’d first watched her; her and the other detective. He’d even showed himself, his ghost self, up on the ridge. He’d thought she’d seen him. He’d wanted her to see him; his form in the woods. She’d given no sign other than to pause and peer. But he knew. The connection was made. The deal sealed there and then.

Now, in the damp morning air, he followed in silence, stalking her, keeping well back, his keen eyes on the prize. He was good at stalking. Good at watching and waiting. Ever since his brother made him wait in the woods until he’d finished with Emily all those years ago, because he’d needed help to get home through the darkening gloom even then. But he did more than wait. He watched.

Watched his brother and Emily at it. Watched and felt his groin stir. Knowing instantly he wanted it, too. He’d waited for his chance, plied Emily with cider one early evening and she’d laughed when he’d suggested she let him do it like his big brother. He hadn’t liked the laughter. He did it anyway with her trying to fight him off. But he’d been too strong for her even at just over fourteen. She’d stormed off afterwards, calling him names. But when, four months later, she’d arranged to meet him, he’d brought condoms, convinced that she’d relented.

But she’d wanted to meet him to talk about something else. Three months pregnant and about to start showing. Threatened him with all sorts if he didn’t sort it. There was a clinic over at Gloucester but she’d need money. If he didn’t get her the money then she was going to the police to tell them what he’d done. Him and his blind brother could go fuck themselves.

That was when he’d lost it. He’d wanted her to shut up. Wanted her to stop the threats and the taunts. He’d put his hands around her neck just to stop the words more than anything. There’d been no planning but when he saw them there, they looked so cool in the Oakley gloves he’d nicked from the cycle shop in Coleford. She’d struggled mightily, but he was strong from helping his father in the woodland. Before his accident, Willis’s father could cut down a forty-foot pine with twenty strokes on a good day, and Charles was a quick learner. His fingers were long, his thumbs meeting in the middle over her larynx as he squeezed the apple. Emily fought, but he squeezed even more and, to his surprise, she passed out. For a moment, he thought she was dead, but when he stopped she coughed and sucked in air.

It thrilled him.

Emily Risman, moaning, half choked, lying there just waiting for him. He’d never felt so excited, never felt so hard. This time he did wear a condom. Kept his hands on her neck as he rode her, squeezing whenever she started to fight.

And that moment shaped him. Became the mould that he was poured into, where he hardened and cured to the beast that would always need feeding.

He finished with Emily and rolled off. Got up and adjusted his trousers. She’d moaned again, but she was breathing. He reached down to retrieve his school backpack and, when he turned back, she was sitting up, glaring at him, horror and disgust written all over her face, her own hands over her livid, bruised neck. It was then that she’d started to scream.

He’d tried to stop her, tried to tell her that it would be OK. But she was hysterical, terrified of him, pushing herself away on her backside to get away. The knife was in his backpack. Something he always carried, not because he wanted to use it on another person, but because it was a tool of his father’s trade, the trade he was likely to go into.

He’d hoped that showing it to her might stop her noise, but all it did was make it worse. People would hear her. People would come.

After he’d used the knife a dozen times, she’d stopped screaming. He’d added a dozen more to her belly just to be sure. He’d tried to hide the body as best he could, finding a natural hollow, meaning to completely cover her, but he’d heard voices and had had to abandon it. Yet not before he’d noticed the way she looked. A nymph, half covered by leaves, so still, as if she were emerging from the earth and the trees.

So beautiful.

Afterwards, he was scared. Scared enough to tell his brother what he’d done. Adding a small but important lie. That he’d done it because Emily had told him that the baby was Roger’s and that she was going to ruin his life.

They’d hatched the cover-up between them, used Cooper as the scapegoat. And, after a while, Charles Willis forgot about the screaming and the blood. But what he didn’t forget was the way that Emily had lain there for him. Quiet, submissive, semiconscious from his power.

He saw her in his dreams.

His brother Roger was weak. A bleeding heart. It would have done no one any good for the truth to come out. The river had been an obvious answer.

And still he dreamed of Emily. Quiet Emily, his first one.

After a while, he made the dreams a reality again.

Just as he was about to do with this one.