Amy laughed. ‘How coincidental.’
‘No, really, thirty, that was my target.’
She paused. ‘Why?’
‘To begin with it was a challenge I set myself. But, as much as I enjoyed it at first, it ended up becoming laborious.’
Amy shook her head and raised her eyes to the ceiling, as if she were silently asking God if she’d heard him correctly. ‘Killingwomen …murderinginnocent people … that waslaboriousto you? Working in a factory production line, washing cars for a living, sweeping the streets, those are laborious jobs, not taking twenty-nine people’s lives, Chris!’
‘When did you put everything together?’ he asked, genuinely curious.
‘Six days ago. You were out, killing your twenty-eighth victim, if my timeline is correct. I was at yours, flicking through the psychology and serial killer books on your shelves, trying to get my head around what makes a monster tick. And among them I found your photo album.’
Christopher nodded slowly, satisfied that at last he could share his work with her.
‘It didn’t make sense, at first,’ Amy continued. ‘Why wouldmyChristopher have those pictures, and how did he get them? I went back to the station briefing room and compared them to the photos that’d been left on the bodies, and they were almost identical –almostidentical. Because each photo had been taken from an ever so slightly different angle, meaning the ones in your album weren’t reproductions or copies. Whoever took those pictures must’ve been at each of the crime scenes. But it was the waitress’s nose ring you kept that removed the last shred of doubt.’
Christopher made no attempt to defend himself. She began pacing around the open-plan kitchen and diner, shaking her head.
‘Can you even begin to imagine what went through my head when I knew what you were?’ Her question was rhetorical, he could tell. Christopher was quite pleased that he could finally recognise the subtleties. ‘I searched your house from top to bottom and I found dozens of smart phones in a bag in your broken freezer. And I turned enough of them on to see the only app installed on them was that dating one, UFlirt, and that every victim had sent you their number. Of course, your computers were password encrypted so I didn’t get anywhere with those.’ She added the last sentence almost as an afterthought.
‘No, you wouldn’t have,’ Christopher replied conceitedly.
‘Look at yourself, Chris,’ Amy replied sharply. ‘You’re in no position to be smug. And you’re not as clever as you think. You left a piece of your DNA at a murder scene.’
He shook his head. ‘That’s not possible. I was always careful, I’m sure of that.’
‘Number Twenty-Seven.’
‘Dominika Bosko.’
Amy arched her eyebrows. ‘So youdoknow their names?’
‘Only hers.’
‘Why, because you killed her baby too?’
Christopher glared at Amy, and for the first time during their confrontation, she recognised regret in his eye.
‘There was one tiny piece of DNA the forensics team found on the child,’ she continued. ‘At some point when you went back to the scene of the crime, you stood over her and cried. They found teardrops on his head and chest. I got your DNA results from the swab you sent to Match Your DNA, and I paid a private lab for some fast-track work to compare the tears on the baby to your results. They were 99.97 per cent identical. I have to know, what was it about them that upset you?’
‘You did,’ he whispered, picturing the child’s lifeless body.
‘Me?’
‘I imagined somebody doing that to you, and me standing over your body having lost you. For the first time in my life, I had no control over my emotions and they got the better of me.’
Christopher watched Amy’s arms begin to unfold and her shoulders droop slightly. Then, just as quickly, she tensed up again.
‘You almost got me there. But do you know why I can never believe a word you say? Because I’ve read passages in books that you highlighted and then quoted to meverbatimabout how you feel, and passed them off as your own. You tell me what you think I want to hear.’
‘It’s only because I’m not used to expressing myself. This is new to me, Amy. I didn’t even know people like me could fall in love.’
‘People like you. You mean psychopaths, right?’
Christopher nodded.
‘My boyfriend, the psychopath. The one thing your books have taught me is that psychopaths are master manipulators.’
