Libby laughed. ‘Do you expect me to believe that?’
‘I don’t expect you to believe anything I say. But if you’re so convinced that I’m going to lie to you then why did you come here tonight?’
Libby opened her mouth, then stopped herself. She didn’t have an answer. ‘What do I call you?’ she asked instead. ‘I assume Jude Harrison isn’t your real name?’
He shook his head. ‘Continue to call me Jude, if it makes things easier.’
‘No, I want your real name.’
‘It’s inconsequential. I’m already buried so deeply in the World Wide Web that by the time you’ve left here – and should you choose to inform the police of ourencounter – my real name won’t matter. They’ll be no closer to finding me.’
‘I don’t care. You owe it to me.’
‘It’s Noah Harris.’
The name felt familiar to Libby but her head was swimming with too much information to pinpoint from where.
‘Why call yourself Jude?’
‘Hey Judewas your late brother’s favourite song. They played it as his funeral. When it reached the chorus, your family rose to their feet, linked their hands in the air and sang along with the “na na” parts. Soon everyone was standing up and joining in.’
‘How dare you! How could you know that?’
‘People record everything these days for posterity. It wasn’t hard to find online.’
Libby shuddered at the depth of his research and knowledge. ‘Of all the people in the world you could have picked, why me?’
‘We needed someone with morals and values and who genuinely cared about the welfare of strangers. For the broadcast we needed a woman who both men and women of all ages could warm to. And for them to invest emotionally in her, she would need to be broken.’
‘You think the world sees me as broken?’
‘Am I wrong?’
‘You’re an arsehole.’
‘We had to give our mark a Passenger to throw her support behind. Who better than a man with a sob story and with whom she was attracted to? The fact you had our shared loathing for autonomous vehicles was of course a huge selling point and one of the reasons why we placed you inside that jury.’
‘Youput me there? I wasn’t randomly selected?’
‘I assumed you had realised that by now. We wanted a personality who’d question the decisions the otherjurors made. I must admit, we thought we might’ve made a bad call after the first day when the others kept railroading you and you gave up fighting back. But by day two and shortly before the first hijack, you came into your own. At that point we knew we couldn’t have asked for anyone better.’
Inside, Libby was still seething. She had long come to terms with her manipulation but she hadn’t known how deep the lies ran. She felt like an idiot. ‘But why me specifically? There are millions of women out there who share my views.’
‘But there aren’t any who share what you and I share.’
Libby raised her eyebrows. ‘Which is?’
‘When you arrived here, you asked me why I picked this location. From what I gathered during the harvesting of your data, there are three events that’ve shaped who you are. Finding your brother’s body, your boyfriend fathering a child with another woman, and then witnessing three people die on this road. One of those, we have in common.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘The three generations of women you watched die right outside this door were my wife, my daughter and my mother.’
Chapter 65
Libby took a step back from Noah and shook her head. ‘This is another one of your lies, isn’t it?’ she spat. ‘You’re disgusting.’
Without giving him the opportunity to defend himself, she turned to make her way towards the door. Behind her, chair legs scraped across the slate floor. Her body tensed and she clasped the handle of the knife tighter.
