Simon Kernick - Severed

Slowly, I'm beginning to piece together what I think might have happened. There are still huge unanswered questions, but for the first time I have a strong idea who may be able to answer them. Finding the people I need to talk to is going to be no easy matter though, and I wish Lucas was here to help. Then I think back to what Adine said about me picking people up and dropping them later, and I wish I'd taken issue with her on this, because I was never that way with Lucas. He was my best friend. No-one can take that away, and when I have the time, I'm going to mourn him properly. But not yet.

I take a long gulp of wine. It's a light Rioja, and it goes down well. I also pour myself a pint glass of water and drink half of it before retiring to the lounge. I need to sit down and recharge my batteries.

It strikes me that at no point today have I watched the news to find out how the mayhem I've been involved in has been reported, so I collapse onto the sofa and switch on the TV. Sky News is doing a sports round-up, so I use Sky Plus to bring up a recording of the latest headlines. I join it in the middle of a feature on the brothel fire. There's aerial footage of the building as it burns, thick cloying smoke taking up much of the screen. The commentator says that four people were taken to hospital suffering from smoke inhalation and that firefighters and investigators are currently sifting through the wreckage to see if there are any bodies inside. He adds that police are still not confirming any connection between the fire and the discovery of the body of a man who'd been stabbed to death fifty yards away.

The next story centres on some supermodel having been filmed snorting cocaine, which doesn't seem like news to me, but then what the hell do I know? She's followed by a piece on a spaniel called Egremont who can apparently do simple arithmetic by barking the total of two added numbers. Egremont's shown successfully adding two and three, and then the music comes on to signal the end of the headlines and the recording loops back to the beginning.

I'm still trying to work out how the dog's owner first realized he could add up when an image appears on the screen that causes me to choke on my wine.

It's a close-up shot taken by a CCTV camera. And the person in it is me.

It's not a perfect picture, thank God. I'm running, which blurs the image very slightly, and looking down and away from the camera so that my face is partially obscured, but it's clear enough for anyone who knows me. The commentator says that police are anxious to trace the man in the image in connection with the deaths of four men in a shooting incident in east London earlier today. I am, apparently, armed and extremely dangerous and should not be approached by members of the public. My picture disappears from the screen to be replaced by daylight footage of the house where I met Iain Ferrie. Scene-of-crime tape surrounds it, and white-overalled SOCO officers can be seen going in and out of the front door while a uniformed officer stands guard outside.

I don't wait around for the next story. I suspect it'll be the Eddie Cosick murders, but that's not important now. What's important is that I get the hell out of here, because every moment I remain makes my capture more likely. I can only assume that the police who were interviewing me tonight haven't seen this CCTV image, otherwise there's no way they'd have let me go. But that's not going to remain the case for long.

I have no grand strategy for a way out of this, certainly no chance of a long-term escape. But I have two key advantages. One, I don't give up. And two, for the moment at least, I'm free. If I keep moving, I'm going to make it hard for them.

I drain my glass and stand up. Not for the first time in the past twelve hours, it's time to start running.

The mobile phones I was carrying when I was arrested have been kept by the police for further analysis, so I use the landline to phone the local taxi firm, who've always been a reliable outfit. The controller says he'll have a cab with me in five minutes.

I run up the stairs, grab a change of clothes and a few toiletries, and thrust them into an overnight bag. I put on an old black leather jacket and a cap to act as camouflage, and arm myself with a large buck knife and a can of pepper spray, both of which I keep in a drawer by the bed in case of unwelcome night-time visitors (even my quiet area of London can be a dangerous place). I hide them both in the inside pockets of the jacket, knowing they're not going to be a great deal of use to me, but they're better than nothing. By this time I can hear the sound of a car stopping in front of my house. I poke my head out of the window and feel a surge of relief as I see it's the taxi. Bang on time.

I'm out the front door quickly and straight into the back of the cab. I give the driver the address of my showroom, and he pulls away without speaking. I wonder when I'll see my house again, or indeed if I ever will. Whether Adine gave me sensible advice or not, now that the police can connect me with yet more killings, convincing them of my innocence will be even harder. Just the fact that I keep popping up at all the murder scenes is way too coincidental.

The journey to the showroom takes under ten minutes at this time of night. It's not safe here either, but I'm not going to be stopping long. I just need a car, then I'll be off again.

I get out and pay the driver, giving him a couple of quid as a tip, then unlock the heavy steel gates and go inside. I hurry through the car park, past the cheaper models we sell, and open up the office.

Immediately I know that something's wrong.

There's no telltale beep to warn me to switch off the alarm, and I always set the alarm when I leave the office. Without exception. In the nearly four years I've run this franchise, I have never forgotten to switch it on. Why would I? In this room are the keys to every vehicle in the place, and that's getting on for a million pounds' worth of stock – a fact I never let slip from my mind.

I switch on the light and look around. The office is tidy, looking much the same as it does when I enter it each morning. Nothing appears to be missing, and everything's in its proper place. The drawers on the desk are all locked, and there's been no attempt to force them, and the strongbox beneath the desk, which contains all the keys to the cars in the showroom, is untouched. But somebody's been here. I'm sure of that.

There are no signs of forced entry, so whoever it was used keys. There are only two showroom keyholders in the world. One is me. The other is my brother, John, who lives in Kent. He hasn't been here. He would have told me. And even though much of the rest of the world seems to be on my back today, I'm not going to count him among that number. He's a quantity surveyor, for Christ's sake, and married with three young kids.

So that only leaves me. I own two sets of keys. One set I keep hidden in a false wall at home, the other I carry with me, and they're the ones I've just opened up with now. I can't be sure I didn't come here on Thursday, but if I did, I would have re-set the alarm. That leaves only one possibility: someone stole my keys when I was drugged. It was someone good as well, because not only did he let himself in, he also disabled a complicated (not to mention expensive) alarm system. Unable to re-set the alarm without the code, he simply locked up, came back and replaced the keys.

But what was he looking for?

The light's flashing on the desk phone. Not surprisingly, I've got messages. I put them on. There are twelve messages from Friday, but all are from existing clients or potential clients, and nothing's out of the ordinary. There's also a message from Thursday, timed at 5.03 p.m., from a private seller with a second-hand model he wants to get rid of. So, I must have left early. Perhaps to meet Leah. Or someone else.