“How does he do it?” I said aloud, studying my whiteboard that was a map of pins and notes.

“What, Sir?” my assistant said.

“Oh, nothing, just thinking out loud.”

“Sir?”

“Yes, Conway?”

“Why do you refer to them as ‘he’”? We don’t actually have a positive confirmation on gender, yet.”

I couldn’t actually answer that question. It was a feeling I had had, a feeling I didn’t even know I had. Every time I referred to this killer I always referred to it as a he. “Just a force of habit.”

***

I poured myself a glass of orange juice when I got back to my flat. Hunger had been non-existent for me lately but I forced down some mock-up of a dinner from whatever I could lay my hands on in the fridge. If Julie had been here then she would have reprimanded me for doing the bare minimum when it came to keeping myself healthy again.

I took the picture of us together from its permanent place on the coffee table and smiled weakly. Almost a year since she had disappeared and despite my own police department turning over every rock we could in the search for her it was as though she had completely vanished off the face of the earth.

“Come back some day.” I said. “Please.”

***

Who’s that knocking at the door? I thought. It was past midnight and I been drifting off to sleep on my chair.

I cautiously approached my door, scanned my hand over the release mechanism and tentatively pulled it open. Only, I would have, but the moment the mechanism clacked on its release was the door shoved into me, sending me tumbling back and over the coffee table.

I rolled to my feet, ignoring the throbbing pain in my skull, and got a look at who had barged their way into my flat.

There in front of me, was nothing. Empty air. A space of devoid of any living thing. But who had pushed their way into my flat? Who had knocked on my door?

I peered out into the hall but saw no one. Not a single life-form breathed.

I locked back up, put a chair against the front door, and slipped into my bed, still alert to an intruder, but as soon as I laid my head on my pillow I instantly fell into a deep sleep.

***

Black turned to white. White turned to black. Black turned to grey. I felt nothing, then everything, then a tingling sensation in my body as I snapped out of my sleep gasping for precious air.

My breath was panicked. What had woken me? I had never woken from a sleep before. From the moment I laid my head down I had never awoken until it was time to get up for school or work.

“It’s okay, calm down,” a soothing voice said beside me. I clutched them and buried my head into them like a baby seeking comfort. “I’ve got you.”

My breathing slowed as it came to me. It can’t be, I thought. That voice. Is it really her?

I looked up, hoping against hope.

“Julie?” I managed.

“It’s me,” she said. “It’s your Julie. But we don’t have time for this. We need to get out. They’ll be after us now that I’ve unplugged you.”

“What? Unplugged me? Julie, where have you been? You’ve been missing almost a year.”

“I’ll tell you on the way, but right now we need to get out of here.” Julie was already packing my things messily into a travel bag.

“I don’t understand. What is this about?”

“The Masters’ are coming. They’ll have been alerted the moment I took out your feeding tube. We have to go. Now.”

“You’re scaring me,” I said. Despite my fear I slipped my clothes from yesterday back on and got my shoes.

“Good, because you should be scared. Listen to me,” she said, kneeling down in front of me, taking my hands in hers. “I know this is a shock to you but it’s time you understood. Remember all those killers that have gotten away without a trace? Even the one you are looking for now? They’re you, Henry, every single one of them. The Masters program you to do as they want.

Now, we have really do have to go, because they’ll be here any minute.”

Sure enough, just as she finished speaking, the distant hail of sirens reached our ears.