When I go to work tomorrow, I’m going to suggest they call you The Saint Christopher killer, she said to herself, imagining him watching her and picturing his smile. Thirty kills and a name … you got your wish in the end, didn’t you?
Chapter 102
NICK
The town was more grand and picturesque than Nick had given it credit for after having looked it up on Google Street View.
The climate was balmy and almost Mediterranean and he wore his cargo shorts, a T-shirt and flip-flops as he’d wandered around the well-kept streets that surrounded the town’s Spanish mission-style architecture. He now sat on a wooden bus stop bench, taking in the hot December morning. The rows of shops he faced were tidy and organised, and there appeared to be enough there to satisfy each of the town’s 73,000 inhabitants.
Every now and again, Dylan made a cheery gurgling noise from his stroller, both amused and excited by the plastic ring of colourful farm animals attached to his wrist, which rattled every time he waved his hand. He had coped with the twenty-three-hour flight remarkably well for a four-month-old, with only the occasional outburst of tears during some particularly troublesome turbulence.
After checking into their B&B, Nick had been too animated to give in to sleep, so they made their first excursion to the park to explore the winter gardens and to feed the ducks. Then they stopped off for a snack in a café before making their way to their Russell Street destination. Ahead of them and three doors to the right was the building that held the man they had flown 12,000 miles to see.
The street in Hastings, New Zealand, was becoming busier as the lunchtime trade picked up and the staff left their work to grab a snack or meet with friends in cafés. Nick bided his time, trying to remain calm, but really all he wanted to do was run through the shop door to announce his arrival.
Even moments before he opened the door, Nick could feel his presence, and a kaleidoscope of butterflies had, en masse, risen up from the pit of his stomach and taken flight inside his body. When he appeared, Nick’s breath was well and truly taken away.
Alex stood still for a moment, not seeing him, and Nick noted that his wavy hair was shorter than when he’d last seen him, almost nine months earlier. He’d shaved off his stubble too, revealing a clean-cut, more angular face. Suddenly, Alex looked flustered, as if he knew something was out of kilter but he couldn’t pinpoint what it was.
Nick knew what he was feeling because he felt it too.
Then, as their eyes locked, Alex took a step backwards in shock. The pushchair especially must have been quite the surprise, he thought.
‘Hello, stranger,’ Nick began, making his way towards him.
Alex was too stunned to reply.
‘Alex, meet Dylan. Dylan, meet Alex.’ Alex moved his disbelieving eyes from Nick’s towards Dylan. He took in the boy’s darker skin and looked at Nick, bewildered.
‘It’s a very, very long story,’ Nick continued, ‘and I have to warn you now, he and I only come as a package. But if you’ll have us, we’re here for keeps.’
Alex tried to cover his mouth with his hands but it was too late to hide his huge, white smile or to stop the tears from falling down his face. And he gave Nick the firmest, most longed-for hug he’d ever received, which Nick took as a yes.
Chapter 103
ELLIE
Ellie sat behind the desk in her office and stared at the spot where, seventeen months earlier, she had bludgeoned her fiancé to death.
She’d heard whispers that some members of staff who’d remained within the company had questioned why she would stay in an office where such a violent act had occurred. And when her refusal to budge from that space was leaked to the press, they too branded it ghoulish and macabre. But Ellie would not allow anyone to bully her from the seventy-first floor of the tallest building in London. What happened the day Matthew was killed would not define the work for which she had sacrificed everything to call her own. He had deserved to die and she didn’t regret that decision for a second. Now, alone in the room, she had earned the right to remain head and shoulders above everyone else.
Since that day, Ellie had effectively erased the man she had known as Tim from her memory. Even when being cross-examined in the witness box at her trial, she was vague about their life together despite her barrister’s attempt to paint her as human and not as the monster millions witnessed online committing a lethal act. That Ellie was woeful and powerless, and had convinced herself to fall in love with a man she had no business loving. That Ellie had been the architect of her own misery and this Ellie had no desire to ever meet or replicate that woman again. So she spent seven days a week working in an office with a ghost to remind her never to be that pathetic.
She took a moment to note how hushed it was in the corridors and offices surrounding hers. Not so long ago it had bustled with life, from Ula and her assistants fielding telephone calls and chatting together. Now, with the business scaled back and a third of staff having quit and not been replaced, the floor was silent. Even her own office was quiet, with her computer switched off, her landline removed and her mobile phone switched to airplane mode.
Her eyes glanced across the room to a stack of the week’s newspapers and magazines piled upon the glass coffee table. From day one, the media’s reaction to her arrest and charges was as she expected. The tabloids went to town with predictably savage character assassinations and they frequently crossed the line when it came to what they could legally report on in a case that had yet to come to trial.
The images of the twenty minutes that changed Ellie’s life had been repeated so often on the news and online that they had become iconic. Like constant replays of the Twin Towers collapsing or the Sri Lankan tsunami that swept thousands to their deaths, viewers gradually became desensitised to the crux of the story – that they were witnessing the murder of a man. But it had worked to her advantage because, to an ever-expanding majority, Matthew had become the enemy.
Media commentators and psychologists analysed the footage in depth to judge his character, body language, lies and motivations, and had labelled him borderline psychopathic. It was Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms that took it a stage further, making her a poster girl for the victims of mental and emotional abuse. For the first time since she sprang to fame, more than a decade earlier, those who once described Ellie as a ruthless businesswoman, unafraid to trample over anyone to get what she wanted, had now been referring to her as an ordinary girl who’d been cruelly manipulated. The PR company she was paying hundreds of thousands of pounds had done a sterling job. Ellie loathed how she was being perceived by the public, but her extensive legal team had frequently reminded her, if it kept her out of prison, then it was for the greater good.
However, while Ellie’s popularity rose, confidence in Match Your DNA was at an all-time low. All these months later and, despite robust marketing campaigns, it continued to suffer the aftershock of Matthew’s 2 million mis-Matches. In the first month, the number of new testing kit applications dropped by 94 per cent. The weeks that followed saw the steep downward curve lessen, but potential customers were no longer willing to place matters of the heart in tainted hands.
The lawsuits arrived thick and fast, and TV channels worldwide broadcast adverts from opportunist law firms offering no win, no fee representation to those who believed they were part of the 2 million. Match Your DNA’s insurers were threatening to not cover any successful compensation claims, accusing the company of being negligent for its ineffective online security that had allowed Matthew to hack into. Without the insurers’ backing, Match Your DNA would end up in inevitable bankruptcy.