Alex Scarrow

Have you bloody well lost us, Mr Keats? He wanted to call out. This trail of his seemed to be little more than a narrow artery of steeply ascending ground on which the trees had mutually elected not to grow.

Every serial killer is a sociopath; you’d need to be able to do what they do. The inability to perceive the feelings of others, the suffering of a victim, gives a killer an advantage . . . the competitive edge, if you like. Which, of course, in Darwinistic – one might even say Dawkinsian terms, these days – makes a hell of a lot of sense, if you think about it.’

If ever you wanted a definition of hell, Julian, it’s the inner landscape of minds like these.

Ben felt his skin run cold, realising he was alone with someone who might just be capable of violent murder and barbaric mutilation.