When narrowing down his choices, he had factored in how he would reach them, and he knew fairly well the distance between his and every one of their homes. He’d learned from the error of others like him that there should be no pattern to the location of his marks – keep everything random on the surface but in perfect order underneath. And over time he’d worked out whose property he should drive to, who’d be best served by bike and which locations would be better reached on foot.
Number Seven’s flat was just a twenty-minute walk away from his house. ‘Perfect,’ he muttered, happy with himself.
But his attention was diverted from the red circle on one screen to the other, which displayed his dozens of email accounts. The email from Match Your DNA had remained unopened since it appeared in his inbox four nights earlier, when he’d been preoccupied with Number Six. But on seeing it again, he became curious as to the woman his biology had determined was best suited to him. At least he hoped it was a woman – he’d read stories about people being Matched with someone of the same sex or with people decades older than them. He didn’t want to be loved by a queer or a geriatric; in fact, Christopher didn’t really want to be loved by anyone. He’d wasted enough time in brief relationships throughout his thirty-three years to comprehend the amount of effort required to satisfy another person. It wasn’t for him.
Yet for all the drawbacks a potential Match presented, he was still inquisitive as to whom his would be. He glanced out of the window and into the darkness of his garden and allowed himself to imagine how amusing itwould be to carry on with his project while pretending to live a normal, pedestrian existence as one half of a couple.
He opened the email. ‘Amy Brookbanks, female, 31, London, England’, it read, along with her email address. He liked the fact that she hadn’t given her mobile number; it showed caution. So many of the girls on his list hadn’t shown that degree of foresight and it had – and would continue to be – their downfall. He decided that when he returned home later that night he would send Amy an email and introduce himself, just to see what she had to say.
As predicted, on his other screen, the location of Number Seven’s telephone number remained stationary. Satisfied, he turned both monitors off, locked up the room and made a beeline for the kitchen cupboard where he kept his packed bag. He put his freshly disinfected cheese wire with the wooden handles in the bag, along with his pay-as-you-go phone with her number taped to the back of it, his gloves and his Polaroid camera.
As Christopher slipped on his gloves and overcoat, he glanced at the camera. It wasn’t an original from back in the 1970s because the paper required for each print was too easy for the police to trace. His camera’s paper was widely available and the camera itself was digital, boasting up-to-date features such as coloured filters. Each Number on his list had used a profile picture that had also been Instagrammed, and as he closed the door to his house, adjusted the straps on his backpack and walked briskly along the quiet street, Christopher knew he wanted his Numbers to look their very best, even in death.
Chapter 8
JADE
Jade looked on amused as the hotel spa’s beauty therapists, Shawna and Lucy, opened their plastic Aldi bags to take out their miserable-looking lunches.
The contents of Shawna’s bag consisted of half-a-dozen thinly sliced celery sticks wrapped in cling film and a pot of low-calorie piri-piri hummus, while Lucy tucked into a gluten-free seeded roll and a chicken Cup a Soup, which was still steaming from a blast in the canteen microwave.
Jade took out her Tupperware lunch box from her handbag. She’d packed a bag of pickled onion Monster Munch, a small packet of Maltesers, a doorstop-chunky ham and pickle sandwich and a can of Pepsi. She had no desire to replicate the diets of her thirty-something workmates.Bugger the bikini, she thought, as she took a bite of the sandwich.
‘So how are things going with that guy you were seeing from the club?’ Shawna asked Lucy, and licked a drop of hummus that’d fallen onto one of her false fingernails.
‘He’s being bloody idiot.’ Lucy sniffed. ‘He told me he was taking me out to dinner last night – which turned out to be at Nando’s – then spent the rest of the nightstaring at the skanky lass working the till. I mean, who does that when you’re on a date? It’s so disrespectful.’
‘Seriously? He is such a player.’
‘I know. He’s coming round mine tonight, though; I said I’d cook. What about you? What about that lad with the tattoos from Tinder?’
‘You mean Denzel? He says he really likes me but then I don’t hear from him in, like, four days. What’s up with that?’
Jade shook her head and took another bite from her sandwich. ‘Terrible. I don’t know how you put up with it. I’m so glad I don’t have to go through that anymore,’ she said between mouthfuls. It was conversations like this that reminded her of how lucky she was to have found Kevin on Match Your DNA, but she was annoyed that he couldn’t live any closer than half the world away in Australia. Before she’d received the email confirming her Match, she’d been in the same position as her workmates, only she liked to think she was more discerning with her men. In reality, she had dated just as many losers, or ‘stopgaps’ asCosmopolitanbranded them.
‘Yeah, you’ve got it easy,’ Lucy said. ‘You’ve found your lad.’
‘But it’s not like he’s on my doorstep, is it?’ Jade replied. ‘I can’t just pop round for dinner and a snog, can I? At least you’re actually interacting with these boys, even if they treat you like shite.’
‘That’s just how men are, though, isn’t it?’ said Shawna. ‘If you’re not one of the millions on that register who’ve been Matched already, then you’ve got to make do with what you can get until Mr Right turns up.Ifhe turns up.’
‘Until then we’re gonna have to put up with a lot of shitbags,’ added Lucy.
‘No, girls, you’re wrong there.’ Jade delighted in telling them what they should do. ‘If us lasses all got our headstogether, re-wrote the girl code and agreed tostopletting ourselves be treated like crap, then boys would have no choice but to up their game. Until then, they’re just going to keep carrying on because we let them.’
‘What I don’t get is what’s stopping you from going over to Australia and living happily ever after with Kevin?’ Shawna said. ‘If science reckons he’s the one for you, then what are you doing wasting your life here?’
‘I can’t just drop everything and go.’ Jade shook her head firmly. ‘Do you know how much flights to Australia cost? I’ve only just finished paying offoneof my credit cards. Plus I’ve got my flat, my career, my family to think about …’
‘Your flat’s rented, you don’t have a career, you have a job you hate – I know that because we all hate this place – and you see your family once in a blue moon. So when it comes down to it, you don’t have any excuse.’
‘It’s not like you’re taking a bloody huge leap of faith either, is it?’ Lucy continued. ‘You were, literally, made for each other. Tell me what you like about him.’
Jade laughed. There was nothing she disliked about Kevin. Well, except his postcode. ‘He’s funny, he makes me feel good about myself, he’s kind, he has a gorgeous smile …’
‘Have you been sending each other sexy selfies?’
‘Of course not.’ Jade was adamant. ‘I’m not a slag.’ In reality, she’d tried once, but Kevin didn’t seem keen.
