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photograph, was incongruous in the sumptuous gilt frame. This man was staring at him. Jack shrank back. It was a picture, but he could not shake the impression that the man could see him.
    He had seen no signs of evil in the set of the woman’s features, but staring back into the grey eyes in the framed picture, Jack knew he was looking at a killer. It was to stop murderers like him that Jack went on his night-time prowls. He occupied their homes without them knowing and meticulously undermined their plans to take lives. At least he had done this until Stella got wind of it and said he must stop, it was illegal. Tonight when he left his house, Jack had promised himself, he was taking a harmless stroll.
    The woman was reading a newspaper. Jack thought her eyes looked tired; lines around them betrayed that she was used to laughing, but deeper grooves around her mouth told him she had not even smiled for a while: misery dictated her mood.
    He understood the plethora of papers and the open doors. She was lonely and unconsciously was inviting guests. The grey man in the portrait was dead. Grieving, his widow was struggling with the household admin that was his legacy. Nothing for Jack here, although she might welcome his company.
    The woman was jotting something down from the article. Jack stepped closer, but could only see three letters in the headline. They spelled ‘The’. He saw the photograph beneath and stifled a yelp. Stella. Jack could just see the byline: Lucille May. He shivered. The widow was reading about Stella. This was a sign. But of what?
    Something struck him on the forehead. He had banged his head on the glass pane. He flung himself flat against the house wall. If she came outside she would see him. He heard clicking: her shoes on a wooden floor. She was coming. He shut his eyes, then snapped them open and cast about. There was nowhere to hide.
    Jack broke cover. He leapt across the band of light from the sitting room and bounded along a path that skirted the lawn. He found himself by the outbuilding. He risked looking back. The woman was still at her desk.
    He was surprised to find the outbuilding was not a shed, but a circular business of white-painted brick with a domed roof. He tried the door; it was locked. He peeped through a glass porthole, out of sight of the house, and saw only a sweeping white wall. It was empty, yet she had locked the door. A sense of peace overwhelmed him and it was all he could do not to return to the flagged patio and slip inside. He could stay here happily. Jack’s justification for night ramblings was to find men who killed and to stop their work. He must not choose places that made him feel at home. He had promised Stella to stop, but in truth as soon as he stepped on to the lawn he had broken this promise.
    Jack did up his coat and, out of the sightline of the camera, returned to the gap in the pyracantha and thrust himself back into the alley.
    He jogged along King Street towards Hammersmith Broadway and swore that from now on he would keep his promise.
    Jack had reached the Lyric Theatre when he realized he didn’t have his A–Z . It must have fallen out of his pocket. He retraced his steps, scouring the pavement.
    He crossed Ravenscourt Road. A dark object lay on the pavement outside the gates of the park. He increased his pace. As he did so a figure stepped out of the gloom and picked it up. Jack was close enough to see the white of the cover. It was his A–Z . He stopped. He could not ask for it back. It was his policy on his journeys never to speak to anyone. He must not be seen or remembered.
    The figure was consulting his atlas as if they had lost their way, slowly turning the pages. Jack could not tell from here if the person was male or female: they stood just outside a circle of lamplight. They wore a coat similar to his, with the collar up. Jack went cold. The person was tracing his journeys, page by page. They could see into his mind. Jack had walked every