He opened the latch of the gate warily, in case it went for him, but it simply turned its enormous head with mild disinterest, walked to the shade of a weedy tree and flopped down on its side, lifting a desultory front leg as if in the vague hope it might get its stomach scratched.

‘I’ll pass, thanks,’ Ed said.

He walked up the path and paused at the door. He had his little speech all prepared.

Hi, I’m really sorry but something very important has come up with work and I’m afraid I’m not going to be able to take the next couple of days off. However, I’d be happy to contribute something to your daughter’s Olympiad fund. I think it’s great that she’s working so hard at her studies. So here’s her train fare.

If it sounded a little less convincing in his head this morning than it had done last night, well, it couldn’t be helped. He was about to knock when he saw the note, half attached to the door with a pin, flapping in the breeze:


FISHER YOU LITTLE WASTE OF SKIN I HAVE TOLD THE POLICE THAT IF ANYONE BREAKS IN IT WILL BE YOU AND THEY ARE WATCHING


As he straightened up the door opened. The little girl stood there. ‘We’re all packed,’ she said, squinting, her head tilted to one side. ‘Mum said you wouldn’t come but I knew you would so I said I wouldn’t let her unpack the suitcases until ten. And you made it with fifty-three minutes to spare. Which is actually about thirty-three minutes better than I estimated.’

He blinked.

‘Mum!’ She pushed the door open. Jess was standing in the hallway, as if she had stopped dead halfway down it. She was wearing a pair of cut-off jeans and a shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Her hair was clipped up. She did not look like someone preparing to travel the length of the country.

‘Hi.’ Ed smiled awkwardly.

‘Oh. Okay.’

She shook her head. And he realized the child had been telling the truth: she really hadn’t expected him to turn up. ‘I’d offer you a coffee, but I got rid of the last of the milk before we set off last night.’

Before he could answer, the boy sloped past, rubbing his eyes. His face was still swollen, and now coloured an impressionist palette of purples and yellows. He gazed at the pile of holdalls and bin bags in the hall and said, ‘Which of these are we taking?’

‘All of them,’ said the little girl. ‘And I packed Norman’s blanket.’

Jess looked at Ed warily. He made to open his mouth, but nothing came out. The entire length of the hallway was lined with battered paperbacks. He wasn’t sure why that surprised him.

‘Can you pick up this bag, Mr Nicholls?’ The little girl tugged it towards him. ‘I did try and lift it earlier because Nicky can’t pick stuff up right now but it’s too heavy for me.’

‘Sure.’ He found himself stooping, but stopped for a moment before he lifted it. How was he going to do this?

‘Listen. Mr Nicholls …’ Jess was in front of him. She looked as uncomfortable as he did. ‘About this trip –’

And then the front door flew open. A woman stood in jogging bottoms and a T-shirt, a baseball bat raised in her hand.

‘DROP THEM!’ she roared.

He froze.

‘PUT YOUR HANDS UP!’

‘Nat!’ Jess shouted. ‘Don’t hit him!’

He lifted them slowly, turning to face her.

‘What the –’ The woman looked past Ed at Jess. ‘Jess? Oh, my God. I thought someone was in your house.’

‘Someone is in my house. Me.’

The woman dropped the bat, then looked in horror at him. ‘Oh, my God. It’s – Oh, God, oh, God, I’m so sorry. I saw the front door and I honestly thought you were a burglar. I thought you were … you know who.’ She laughed nervously, then pulled an agonized face at Jess, as if he couldn’t see her.

Ed let out a breath. The woman put the bat behind her and tried to smile. ‘You know how it is around here …’

He took a step backwards and gave a small nod. ‘Okay, well … I just need to get my phone. Left it in the car.’

He edged past her with his palms up and headed down the path. He opened and shut the car door, then locked it again, just to give himself something to do, trying to think clearly over the ringing in his ears. Just drive off, a little voice said. Just go. You never have to see her again. You do not need this right now.

Ed liked order. He liked to know what was coming. Everything about this woman suggested the kind of … boundarylessness that made him nervous.

He walked halfway back up the path, trying to formulate the right words. As he approached the house, he could just hear them talking behind the half-closed door, their voices carrying across the little garden.

‘I’m going to tell him no.’

‘You can’t, Jess.’ The boy’s voice. ‘Why?’

‘Because it’s too complicated. I work for him.’

‘You clean his house. That’s not the same thing.’

‘We don’t know him, then. How can I tell Tanzie not to get in cars with men she doesn’t know, and then do exactly that?’

‘He wears glasses. He’s hardly going to be a serial killer.’

‘Tell that to Dennis Nielsen’s victims. And Harold Shipman’s.’

‘You know way too many serial killers.’

‘We’ll set Norman on him if he does anything bad.’ The boy’s voice again.

‘Yes. Because Norman has been so useful, protecting this family in the past.’

‘Mr Nicholls doesn’t know that, does he?’

‘Look. He’s just some bloke. He probably got caught up in the drama last night. It’s obvious he doesn’t want to do it. We’ll – we’ll just let Tanzie down gently.’

Tanzie. Ed watched her running around the back garden, her hair flying out behind her. He watched the dog shambling back towards the door, half dog, half yak, leaving an intermittent snail trail of drool behind him.

‘I’m wearing him out so that he’ll sleep most of the journey.’ She appeared in front of him, panting.

‘Right.’

‘I’m really good at maths. We’re going to an Olympiad so I can win money to go to a school where I can do A-level maths. Do you know what my name is, converted to binary code?’

He looked at her. ‘Is Tanzie your full name?’

‘No. But it’s the one I use.’

He blew out his cheeks. ‘Um. Okay. 01010100   01100001   01101110   01111010   01101001   01100101.’

‘Did you say 0101 at the end? Or 1010?’

‘0101. Duh.’ He used to play this game with Ronan.

‘Wow. You actually spelt it right.’ She walked past him and pushed the door. ‘I’ve never been to Scotland. Nicky keeps trying to tell me there are herds of wild haggis. But that’s a lie, right?’

‘To the best of my knowledge they’re all farmed these days,’ he said.

Tanzie stared at him. Then she beamed, and sort of growled at the same time.

And Ed Nicholls realized he was headed for Scotland.

The two women fell silent as he pushed the door open. Their eyes dropped to the bags that he picked up in each hand.

‘I need to get some stuff before we go,’ he said, as he let the door swing behind him. ‘And you missed out Gary Ridgway. The Green River Killer. But you’re fine. They were all short-sighted. And my glasses are long.’

It took three-quarters of an hour to leave town. The lights were out on the top of the hill and that, combined with Easter-holidays traffic, slowed the queue of cars to a bad-tempered crawl. Jess sat in the car beside him, silent and oddly awkward, her hands pressed together between her knees. He guessed she knew that he’d overheard the whole conversation. She had barely said a single word since they’d left her house.

The boy – Nicky – sat on the other side of the dog to his sister. He had the air-con on, but it couldn’t disguise the smell of the dog, so he turned it off and they sat with all four windows open instead. And into this odd silence, Tanzie kept up a constant stream of chatter.

‘Have you been to Scotland before?’

‘Where do you come from?’

‘Do you have a house there?’

‘Why are you staying here then?’

He had some work to sort out, he said. It was easier than ‘I’m awaiting possible prosecution and a jail term of up to seven years.’

‘Do you have a wife?’

‘Not any more.’

‘Were you unfaithful?’

‘Tanzie,’ said Jess.

He blinked. Glanced into the rear-view mirror. ‘Nope.’

‘On Jeremy Kyle one person is usually unfaithful. Sometimes they have another baby and they have to do a DNA test and usually when it’s right the woman looks like she wants to hit someone. But mostly they just start crying.’

She squinted out of the window.

‘They’re a bit mad these women, mostly. Because the men have all got another baby with someone else. Or lots of girlfriends. So statistically they’re really likely to do it again. But none of the women ever seem to think about statistics.’

‘I don’t really watch Jeremy Kyle,’ he said, glancing at the satnav.

‘Nor do I. Only when I go to Nathalie’s house when Mum’s working. She records it while she’s cleaning so she can watch it in the evenings. She has forty-seven episodes on her hard drive.’

‘Tanzie. I think Mr Nicholls probably wants to concentrate.’

‘It’s fine.’

Jess was twisting a strand of her hair. She had her feet up on the seat. Ed really hated people putting their feet on seats. Even if they did take their shoes off.

‘So why did your wife leave you?’

‘Tanzie.’

‘I’m being polite. You said it was good to make polite conversation.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Jess said.

‘Really. It’s fine.’ He addressed Tanzie through the rear-view mirror: ‘She thought I worked too much.’