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The man who killed Ash’s father is much smaller in real life than the giant who’s lived inside Ash’s head for over a year.

He’s a slightly built man, and no more than five foot ten.

The meaty hands that Ash had pictured over and over again are the size of a normal man’s hands, his face is softer, the skin looser, his eyes sadder.

He has lost weight. He smiles at Ash as she approaches, raises himself from his seat about two inches and then lowers himself again.

There is a strange moment where it looks like he will shake her hand, but he doesn’t and she is relieved.

She hasn’t told her mother, or indeed Jane, about arranging this visit.

The theory behind this visit is so wacky and fantastical that Ash can barely believe she is pursuing it.

Having only just convinced her mother that she is behaving rationally and sanely, she does not want Nina to start doubting her again.

He’s called Joe Kritner, the man who killed Ash’s father.

He is thirty-two years old. He has parents who love him but who couldn’t keep him safe from himself.

His face has been imprinted on Ash’s psyche for so long: his pale, wide, fleshy cheeks, a thin line of a mouth, brown hair flopping onto a prematurely lined forehead, eyes filled with nightmares.

They’d been shown the CCTV footage: her father in shorts and a hoodie, his headphones on, a little dance in his body as he stands at the end of the platform, glancing back and up at the display every now and again to check the timing of the next train.

And then Joe Kritner appears, slow at first, stopping every so often to turn to look at the display, inching ever closer.

Then, as the lights of an approaching tube light up the CCTV footage, her father takes a step closer to the edge of the platform and Joe Kritner brings up his pace, and then there he is.

Right there. For a big man, Joe Kritner moves so smoothly, so effortlessly, the two meaty hands against her father’s shoulder blades, the two milky lights of the train…

and suddenly there is only one man on the platform.

Joe Kritner turns away the moment it is done; he doesn’t pause to look at the aftermath, he just turns and stares down the full length of the platform and puts his hands against his own chest, leaving them there for just a second, almost as if he is wiping away the traces of her father’s hoodie from his palms. He starts to walk slowly and, in the footage, people appear who had not been in the shot before, they appear and they look horrified and they push Joe Kritner onto a bench and restrain him there as tube workers arrive in high-vis with walkie-talkies, and then the police, and then, finally, finally Joe Kritner is removed and the footage shows an empty, postapocalyptic-looking platform.

The drama is over. All that is left is for the clean-up team to arrive.

During police questioning, Joe Kritner had talked about the big “Silver Man” who had made him do it.

He’d shown them the money he’d been given—fifty pounds in shiny ten-pound notes.

The Silver Man had talked about a bomb. A terrorist attack.

The Silver Man had told him what to do. Joe had mentioned him over and over again—but then he’d talked about all sorts of incredible and nonsensical things during questioning.

The big Silver Man had sounded just as bizarre as everything else.

“Hi,” says Ash. “Thank you for seeing me.”

Joe shakes his head. “No, no, it’s fine. Honestly. Fine.” He speaks with a slight stammer. “How are you?”

The question throws Ash slightly. “Oh,” she says. “I’m fine. Thank you.”

They are in a small room on upholstered chairs.

Joe Kritner has no restraints. According to the officials, he represents no physical danger now that he is medicated, but still, Ash thinks, you see it in films, the prisoner pretends to take their meds, spits them out when no one’s looking.

There is an officer in the room with them, but Ash feels horribly anxious, on the verge of panic.

This is the man, after all, who killed her father.

She clears her throat and makes herself sound brave. “I wanted to ask you,” she says, “about the Silver Man?”

She sees something pass across Joe’s eyes. “Yes,” he says. “I remember that. I remember talking about him. I think, though, that I might have made it up? Because of my problems? You know?” He grimaces apologetically and reaches to scratch the back of his neck.

“Do you really think that? Or is that what people have told you?”

“I just don’t know. To be honest. No, that’s not right.

It’s complicated. I feel like there was a Silver Man.

But when I think about the Silver Man, my head tells me to stop being so stupid, that there’s no such thing as silver men, and what I did to your dad, that terrible, bad thing, it was my responsibility.

Fully my responsibility. And I just made up the Silver Man to have someone to blame for my own actions. ”

“But what if he was real? Is that possible? I mean, does he have a face? Or was he just a voice?”

“He had a face. But I made it up. Like I made up lots of things then—all the time. But, yes, he had a face. A real face.”

“And this face you made up. Did it…” Ash opens her hand to reveal the folded piece of paper she’s brought in with her, and she carefully unfolds it before turning it to face Joe. “Did it look like this?”

It’s Nick Radcliffe’s LinkedIn photo, slightly blurred in the enlarged printout but still recognizably him.

She sees Joe’s eyes widen, his jaw fall open.

His fingers reach for the sheet of paper and pull it slowly toward him.

Then he stares up at Ash, his eyes full of fear and horror, and says, “Where did you get this?”

“It’s a photo of a man called Nick Radcliffe. But he has lots of other names too. Do you recognize him?”

He looks back at the photo and then up at Ash and nods, just once. “That’s him,” he whispers. “That’s him. I don’t…” He pushes himself back from the table with his hands. “I don’t understand. He’s not real. The Silver Man isn’t real.”

“But is this him? Is this the man who told you to push Paddy?”

Joe nods. His chair is now a foot from the table, and she can see his breathing has sped up, his chest rising and falling. She sees he is scared.

“He gave me money. He told me the man—your father—was evil. He told me your father was going to explode a bomb. Kill lots of people. He told me lots of things. He just talked and talked and talked. He said so many words. And then he went.”

“Where? Where was this?”

“Outside. Leicester Square. I was… asking people for money. Because I was homeless back then. Couldn’t live with my mum and dad because I was too much trouble.

My mum was scared of me. I had to live on the streets.

Life was very difficult. I had a lot of things going on.

So much noise. I was never quiet. And this man, he gave me money.

This one.” He points at the photo on the table.

“But he wasn’t real. He was never real. I know he wasn’t real. ”

“He was real, Joe. He really was. And can you remember, in this conversation you had, which exit you were at? At the station?”

“Where I always was. On Charing Cross Road. Just on the steps where they go down into the station. It was my place. People knew me. Lots of people spoke to me. Brought me things. But this man, this Silver Man… he was new. He was friendly. And he was kind.”

“How did you get down there? Onto the platform? Did he go with you?”

“No. I can’t remember. At least, I couldn’t remember before. But now maybe I do. Because maybe he was real?”

“He was. He is. And do you—would you feel OK? To tell people? To say it was him?”

Joe shakes his head vehemently. “No. Nobody would believe me. They didn’t believe me then. They won’t believe me now.”

“What if I could find some sort of film footage, CCTV, to show this man talking to you. To prove it happened. Would you be prepared to talk about him then? To the police?”

Joe glances up at the guard in the corner as though he might have an opinion on the matter. The guard doesn’t react, and Joe turns back to Ash. “Yes,” he whispers softly. “Yes. I think so. If it was helpful. To you? And your family?”

“It would be helpful,” says Ash. “It would be really helpful to me, and to my mother, and to lots and lots of other women and people that this man has hurt.”

Joe nods, gently at first, then more and more animatedly. “Yes,” he says. “If you can find proof that this man talked to me, then yes. Yes, I will.”

Ash collects her possessions from the small locker she’d been assigned at security, her fingers fumbling over her phone as she takes it out of her bag and switches it on, her heart still racing, nausea rushing through her system, making her dizzy, desperate for air.

She stumbles through the last of the many doors she went through to reach Joe Kritner and then, as the chilled January air hits the insides of her lungs, the hot skin of her face, she folds herself in half, clutches hold of her kneecaps, and sobs with a mixture of grief and fury.

Then, and only then, does she call her mother.

“I’m calling the police,” says Nina. “I’m calling them right now.”