Copycat: The unputdownable new thriller from the bestselling author of After Anna. Alex Lake

ended she was bored of him. She didn’t bother breaking it off; she just went home for the summer and, in the days before cell phones and text messages, forgot about him.

      He didn’t forget about her, though. A week into the vacation he showed up in Barrow, in his parents’ convertible BMW, and knocked on her door.

      She was surprised, and not pleased, when she opened it to see him standing there in his khaki shorts, linen shirt and Oakley sunglasses.

      It took her two days – and a fictitious weekend away with her friends, which she told him she wanted to cancel but couldn’t – to get rid of him. It was awkward, and uncomfortable, and they only had sex once, in silence.

      She thought he would get the message, but the next week he called and informed her he was thinking of coming back. She asked him not to; he insisted.

      You’re my girl, he said. I want to see you.

      She wanted to say I’m not anybody’s girl, but instead she told him she was enjoying time alone and planned to go on doing so.

      For how long? he said, a note of desperation in his voice.

       I dunno. All summer, maybe.

      He was silent. No, he said, finally. No way.

      Matt, she said. It’s up to me.

      No, he said. You’re my girl. You are.

      So this time she said it: I’m nobody’s girl, and I don’t want you to come to my house.

      He started to plead, but she hung up.

      Two days later she was coming back from the beach with Jean. They pulled into her street and there was a red BMW convertible in her driveway. Leaning on the hood, his back to them, was Matt.

      She told Jean to keep driving. When she got home in the evening he was gone. Her mom gave her a wry smile.

      Be careful, she said. These young men can get carried away.

      He didn’t show up again. He didn’t even call, and back in college, he avoided her. It was about a month later that Toni suggested they go out for a coffee.

      I think you need to talk to Matt, she said.

      No thanks, Sarah replied. I’ve been enjoying not talking to him.

      Well, you might have to. Toni paused. He’s been saying – well, he’s been telling people the reason you guys broke up is because you’re crazy. He’s saying you stalked him during the summer and you cried if he tried to do anything without you. He’s also spreading a rumor you’re a nymphomaniac, although he’s claiming it could be because he’s so good in bed.

      So Sarah did talk to him. She explained that whatever respect she’d had for him was gone forever. And she asked him to tell everyone that his explanation for their break-up was lies.

      He refused, and it was the last time she had any contact with him.

      Until the week before her wedding, when an email arrived. Matt had learned she was about to get married and, as a result, would be lost to him forever. He had always loved her, he claimed, so, in a last-ditch attempt to salvage their relationship, he was letting her know he loved her.

      I only spread those rumors when we broke up because I was hurt, he added, in his email, as though his being hurt justified anything. I’ll always love you, Sarah, and if you want to change your mind I’ll be waiting.

      She didn’t want to. She let him know this – and not too gently – and suggested he not contact her again. At the time she had been a bit shaken up – she had no idea he still held such an intensely burning candle for her, and she couldn’t believe he thought his plan might work – but looking back, it was quite amusing.

      Unless the candle had not gone out, and he was impersonating her on Facebook and email.

      ‘You think it might be him?’ Sarah said.

      ‘You’d know. From what you told me, he was a bit on the possessive side.’

      Sarah nodded. ‘OK, I’ll ask around. See if anyone knows what he’s up to these days.’

      ‘Good,’ Ben said. ‘Sounds like a plan.’

       17

      She is looking for answers. Trying to think who might be behind this. She is worried; the events themselves are harmless, nothing more than digital information on the Internet or in a message, but it is what lies behind that bothers her.

      What lies behind – what might lie behind – is what causes the fear.

      The fear that this cyber threat will become a real threat. A physical threat. And so she thinks of stalkers and killers and kidnappers.

      But – as so often – she is missing the point.

      What lies behind is not a physical threat.

      It is much worse.

      Why is a man able to kill – with ease – a lion? All lions, if he wishes? Or sharks. Elephants. Dinosaurs, if they still existed.

      It is not because of physical strength. If all we had to go on was physical strength, mankind would be in the middle of the food chain, somewhere around a cow or dog. Mankind would not be close to being the apex predator.

      But mankind has something the others don’t.

      Intelligence. The ability to use tools, to co-opt nature to serve his ends. To make spears and then guns and then missiles.