Free Bloodstream by Luca Veste Page A

come across before.’
    DCI Stephens waited for him to continue, but Murphy didn’t have any more. Except one thing.
    ‘Obsession,’ he said after a few seconds. ‘This is someone who was obsessed with them or what they represent. That’s my feeling. Not some domestic murder–suicide ridiculous situation. This is something worse.’

Fate
     
    There was a question he thought of often, never receiving an answer that placated him. It niggled at him late at night, when he slept fitfully in the adjacent room to the one he stood in now. He asked Number Four, not waiting for an answer.
    ‘Do you believe in fate? Some guiding force which brings us all together? Loads of people do. I’ve noticed that over the years, talking to people in work and other places. In pubs, betting shops, supermarkets. You hear them all the time, talking about karma and saying things like
It was written in the stars.
Millions of people read horoscopes in newspapers, believing the things they say, as if they could apply to hundreds of millions of people simultaneously.’
    Did he believe in fate?
    ‘It’s what people say in new relationships all the time, you know. Circumstance had driven them together, but they believed they were always
meant
to be together.’
    His voice went up an octave, a mocking tone to it. ‘It was fate that he missed his bus. That she decided not to eat her lunch in the same place she always did that day.’ He ignored the fact Number Four shrank back from him as he laid the palm of his hand on the top of her head. He stroked her hair, and she whimpered from behind the duct tape across her mouth.
    His voice went back to normal. ‘Fate supposedly made sure they were pushed together, so they would meet and get married and have kids and grow old and have grandchildren and then die a few months apart. Blah, blah, blah, life, blah.’
    He sniffed and shook his head. Lifted Number Four’s face by her chin, staring directly into her eyes. ‘I don’t think I believe in it. But I sometimes wonder if fate brought you to me. To give me purpose. To make someone see what true love is. To make you understand that what I feel is more than what you think could be possible. Without that, I wouldn’t be making them see that what they’re doing isn’t right. That their love is wrong.’
    He was almost sure that fate didn’t exist. However, the way he had met Number Three was almost too coincidental. It was that meeting that had set him on the course he was on now.
    ‘I’d only been working there a few weeks when I met Number Three. Still learning people’s names, making sense of the layout. Just a normal evening shift. Jane. Simple name, for a simple girl. I’ve told you this before, haven’t I?’
    Number Four closed her eyes as he traced a finger down her cheek. The noise of the chains against the radiator echoed in the almost empty room.
    ‘When I fall in love, I want to devour them, immerse myself within them and take total control. Become one and the same person. She wasn’t overly attractive. Just plain Jane. If people passed her on the street, they wouldn’t look twice. Not like you, Number Four. It was easy for me to see past the imperfections, though. I noticed other things about her. The way her mousy-brown hair flicked up slightly near the ends. The pear-shaped curves, which only accentuated her best feature. Her face in pale light, clear and line free.’
    He stood above Number Four, watching her chest move up and down, then turned away and moved over to the window. He shivered against the cold coming through the single glazing. ‘I watched her during breaks in work, reading a book or eating a sandwich. Her lips parting to reveal off-white teeth, a small gap between the front two. I had to have her.’
    He pursed his lips at the memory of the days it had taken to work up the courage to speak to her. The memories of too many wrong paths taken. Bad things said, which had almost stopped him.
    ‘She was more than