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learned what she was
actually
doing.’
    â€˜An’ what
was
she actually doin’?’
    â€˜You know, because you were the one who told her to do it. So when you asked me in the briefing what she was doing, I just assumed that because of the pressures of the moment, your instruction to her had slipped your mind.’
    â€˜An’ they still seem to be slippin’ it,’ Woodend said. ‘Just remind me of what them instructions were.’
    â€˜You told her to take Louisa home.’
    Woodend was silent for some time, then he said, ‘I told her to see to it that you got to headquarters as soon as possible. I never mentioned anythin’ about her becomin’ your personal babysitter.’
    â€˜I hardly think that’s fair,’ Rutter said hotly.
    â€˜I’m sure you don’t,’ Woodend agreed. ‘But it’s right enough, whether or not. She wants to protect you, Bob. An’ I can understand that, because I want to protect you, too. But there are limits to what we can do – an’ I won’t see Monika dragged under just so that you can stay afloat. So while she’s lookin’ after your interests, it’s your job to see that you’re lookin’ after hers.’
    â€˜I still thing you’re being unfair,’ Rutter said.
    â€˜
Life
’s unfair,’ Woodend said flatly. Then he softened a little and put a sympathetic hand on Rutter’s shoulder. ‘Life’s
very
unfair. An’ after all that you’ve been through yourself, I would have thought you’d have understood that long ago.’
    The windows of the house were all boarded up, as was the front door. In what had once been the small front garden lay any amount of rubbish which had simply been dumped there – broken-down refrigerators and superannuated prams, glass bottles and rusting tin cans. To anyone who happened to be passing by, therefore, the house looked derelict and totally uninhabited.
    The Invisible Man knew better. He knew, because he owned the house, that while most of the rooms had fallen into irredeemable decay, there was one on the ground floor which had been fitted up for his special purpose. In this room, which was illuminated by a paraffin lamp, there was a camp bed, an easy chair, and a small gas stove. But, more importantly –
much
more importantly – there was a spyhole in the wall, which was virtually undetectable from the other side.
    He had begun thinking of himself as the Invisible Man while he was still at school. No one else knew then – or knew now – that he called himself by the name. It was a secret he had never revealed – and would never reveal.
    Back in his school days, the name had had an almost literal meaning for him – he was the boy who other people appeared not to see, the boy whose opinions mattered for nothing, the one who was the last to be picked for the football team and was looked straight through by the girls he admired.
    It didn’t have that meaning now. Now he was invisible only in the sense that other people couldn’t see what he was doing, couldn’t even guess at his plans, and had no idea how he meant to order their lives until it was too late to stop it.
    Invisibility was no longer a sign of weakness as it had once been, he told himself. It was a cloak that he used to hide his true power.
    He sat down in the easy chair, pulled back the cover of the spyhole, and pressed his eye against the glass.
    He could see the girl! She was huddling in the corner of the room, hugging herself tightly and sobbing. Illuminated as she was, by the flickering neon light over her head, it seemed almost as if she was on a stage, performing. And in a way, she was. Performing for her director. Performing for
him
!
    He had been imagining this moment for weeks.
    No, not for weeks!
    For months!
    For years!
    For almost as long as he could remember.
    Yet never had he thought it would be like this