VAL McDERMID

The Torment of Others

Dedication

For Leslie, Sandra, Julia, Jane, Maria, Mel, Margaret, Nicky, Jenni, Mary, Julie, Paula, Jai, Diana, Stella, Shelley, Daphne and Bunty Al - my personal monstrous regiment of women who brought back the wounded from the battlefield and tended me till I was better. With love and thanks.

Epigraph

But the torment of others remains an experience Unqualified, unworn by subsequent attrition. People change, and smile: but the agony abides.

TS Eliot

The Dry Salvages’, Four Quartets

All torment, trouble, wonder, and amazement Inhabits here. Some heavenly power guide us Out of this fearful country!

William Shakespeare

The Tempest

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Epigraph

Part One

Chapter 1

Part Two

Chapter 2

Part Three

Chapter 3

Part Four

Chapter 4

Acknowledgements

Praise for The Torment of Others

About the Author

By the Same Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

PART ONE

Just because you hear voices, it doesn’t mean you’re mad. You don’t have to be well smart to know that. And even though you did all that stuff that made the jury look sick to their stomachs, at least you’re clever enough to know that doesn’t make you a nutter. All sorts of people have other voices in their heads, everybody knows that. Like on the telly. Even though you can believe it when you’re watching it, everybody knows it’s not real. And somebody’s got to have dreamed it up in the first place without them ending up where you have. Stands to reason.

So you’re not worried. Well, not very worried. OK, they said you were insane. The judge said your name, Derek Tyler, and he tagged you with the mad label. But even though he’s supposed to be a smart bastard, that judge didn’t know he was following the plan. The way to avoid the life sentence that they always hand down when somebody does what you did. If you make them believe you were off your head when you did it, then it isn’t you that did the crime, it’s the madness in you. And if you’re mad, not bad, it stands to reason you can be cured. Which is why they lock you up in the nuthouse instead of the nick. That way the doctors can poke around in your head and have a crack at fixing what’s broke.

Of course, if nothing’s broke in the first place, the best thing you can do is keep your mouth zipped. Not let on you’re as sane as them. Then, when the time is right, you can start talking. Make it look like they’ve somehow worked their magic and turned you into somebody they can let out on the street again.

It sounded really easy when the Voice explained it. You’re pretty sure you got it right, because the Voice went over it so many times you can replay the whole spiel just by closing your eyes and mouthing the words: ‘I am the Voice. I am your Voice. Whatever I tell you to do is for the best. I am your Voice. This is the plan. Listen very carefully.’ That’s the trigger. That’s all it takes. The intro that makes the whole tape play in your head. The message is still there, implanted deep inside your brain. And it still makes sense. Or at least, you think it does.

Only, it’s been a long time now. It’s not easy, staying on the wrong side of silence day after day, week after week, month after month. But you’re pretty proud of the way you’ve hung on to it. Because there’s all the other stuff interfering with the Voice. Therapy sessions where you have to blank what the real nutters are going on about. Counselling sessions where the doctors try and trick you into words. Not to mention the screaming and shouting when somebody goes off on one. Then there’s all the background noise of the day room, the TV and the music rumbling round your head like interference.

All you have to fight back with is the Voice and the promise that the word will come when the time is right. And then you’ll be back out there, doing what you’ve discovered you do best.

Killing women.

Chapter 1

Find them in the first six hours or you’re looking for a corpse. Find them in the first six hours or you’re looking for a corpse. The missing children mantra mocked Detective Inspector Don Merrick. He was looking at sixteen hours and counting. And counting was just what the parents of Tim Golding were doing. Counting every minute that took them further from their last glimpse of their son. He didn’t have to think about what they were feeling; he was a father and he knew the visceral fear lying in wait to assail any parent whose child is suddenly unaccountably not where they should be. Mostly it was history in a matter of minutes when the child reappeared unscathed, usually grinning merrily at the panic of its parents. Nevertheless it was history that left its mark bone deep.

And sometimes there was no relief. No sudden access of anger masking the ravages of ill-defined terror when the child reappeared. Sometimes it just went on and on and on. And Merrick knew the dread would continue screaming inside Alastair and Shelley Golding until his team found their son. Alive or dead. He knew because he’d witnessed the same agony in the lives of Gerry and Pam Lefevre, whose son Guy had been missing now for just over fifteen months. They’d dragged the canal, combed the parks and wasteland within a two-mile radius, but not a trace of Guy had ever surfaced.

Merrick had been the bagman on that inquiry, which was the main reason why he’d been assigned to Tim Golding. He had the knowledge to see whether there were obvious links between the cases. But beyond knowledge, his instincts already nagged that whoever had snatched Guy Lefevre had now claimed his second victim.

He leaned against the roof of his car and swept the long curve of the railway embankment with binoculars. Every available body was down there, combing the scrubby grass for any trace of the eight-year-old boy who had been missing since the previous evening. Tim had been playing with two friends, some complicated game of make-believe involving a superhero that Merrick vaguely remembered his own sons briefly idolizing. The friends had been called in by their mother and Tim had said he was going down the embankment to watch the freight trains that used this spur to bring roadstone from the quarry on the outskirts of the city to the railhead.

Two women heading for the bus stop and bingo thought they’d caught a glimpse of his canary yellow Bradfield Victoria shirt between the trees that lined the top of the steep slope leading down to the tracks. That had been around twenty to eight. Nobody else had come forward to say they’d seen the boy.

His face was already etched on Merrick’s mind. The school photograph resembled a million others, but Merrick could have picked out Tim’s sandy hair, his open grin and the blue eyes crinkled behind Harry Potter glasses from any line-up. Just as he could have done with Guy Lefevre. Wavy dark brown hair, brown eyes, a scatter of freckles across his nose and cheeks. Seven years old, tall for his age, he’d last been seen heading for an overgrown stand of trees on the edge of Downton Park, about three miles from where Merrick was standing now. It had been around seven on a damp spring evening. Guy had asked his mother if he could go out for another half-hour’s play. He’d been looking for birds’ nests, mapping them obsessively on a grid of the scrubby little copse. They’d found the grid two days later, on the far edge of the trees, crumpled into a ball twenty yards from the bank of the disused canal that had once run from the railhead to the long-silent wool mills. That had been the last anyone had seen of anything connected to Guy Lefevre.

And now another boy seemed also to have vanished into thin air. Merrick sighed and lowered the binoculars. They’d had to wait for daylight to complete their search of the area. They’d all clung to a faint hope that Tim had had an accident, that he was lying somewhere injured and unable to make himself heard. That hope was dead now. The frustration of having no leads bit deep. Time to round up the usual suspects. Merrick knew from past experience how unlikely it was to produce results, but he wasn’t prepared to leave any avenue unexplored.

He pulled out his mobile and called his sergeant, Kevin Matthews. ‘Kev? Don here. Start bringing the nonces in.’

‘No sign, then?’

‘Not a trace. I’ve even had a team through the tunnel half a mile up the tracks. No joy. It’s time to start rattling some cages.’

‘How big a radius?’

Merrick sighed again. Bradfield Metropolitan Police area stretched over an area of forty-four square miles, protecting and serving somewhere in the region of 900,000 people. According to the latest official estimates he’d read, that meant there were probably somewhere in the region of 3,000 active paedophiles in the force area. Fewer than ten per cent of that number was on the register of sex offenders. Rather less than the tip of the iceberg. But that was all they had to go on. ‘Let’s start with a two-mile radius,’ he said. ‘They like to operate in the comfort zone, don’t they?’ As he spoke, Merrick was painfully aware that these days, with people commuting longer distances to work, with so many employed in jobs that kept them on the road, with local shopping increasingly a thing of the past, the comfort zone was, for most citizens, exponentially bigger than it had ever been even for their parents’ generation. ‘We’ve got to start somewhere,’ he added, his pessimism darkening his voice.

He ended the call and stared down the bank, shielding his eyes against the sunshine that lent the grass and trees below a blameless glow. The brightness made the search easier, it was true. But it felt inappropriate, as if the weather was insulting the anguish of the Goldings. This was Merrick’s first major case since his promotion, and already he suspected he wasn’t going to deliver a result that would make anybody happy. Least of all him.

Dr Tony Hill balanced a bundle of files on the arm carrying his battered briefcase and pushed open the door of the faculty office. He had enough time before his seminar group to collect his mail and deal with whatever couldn’t be ignored. The psychology department secretary emerged from the inner office at the sound of the door closing. ‘Dr Hill,’ she said, sounding unreasonably pleased with herself.

‘Morning, Mrs Stirrat,’ Tony mumbled, dropping files and briefcase to the floor while he reached for the contents of his pigeonhole. Never, he thought, was a woman more aptly named. He wondered if that was why she’d chosen the husband she had.

‘The Dean’s not very pleased with you,’ Janine Stirrat said, folding her arms across her ample chest.

‘Oh? And why might that be?’ Tony asked.

‘The cocktail party with SJP yesterday evening–you were supposed to be there.’

With his back to her, Tony rolled his eyes. ‘I was engrossed in some work. The time just ran away from me.’

‘They’re a major donor to the behavioural psychology research programme,’ Mrs Stirrat scolded. ‘They wanted to meet you.’

Tony grabbed his mail in an unruly pile and stuffed it into the front pocket of his briefcase. ‘I’m sure they had a wonderful time without me,’ he said, scooping up his files and backing towards the door.

‘The Dean expects all academic staff to support fundraising, Dr Hill. It’s not much to ask, that you give up a couple of hours of your time–’

To satisfy the prurient curiosity of the executives of a pharmaceutical company?’ Tony snapped. ‘To be honest, Mrs Stirrat, I’d rather set my hair on fire and beat the flames out with a hammer.’ Using his elbow to manipulate the handle, he escaped into the corridor without waiting to check the affronted look he knew would be plastered across her face.

Temporarily safe in the haven of his own office, Tony slumped in the chair behind his computer. What the hell was he doing here? He’d managed to bury his unease about the academic life for long enough to accept the Reader’s job at St Andrews, but ever since his brief and traumatic excursion back into the field in Germany, he’d been unable to settle. The growing realization that the university had hired him principally because his was a sexy name on the prospectus hadn’t helped. Students enrolled to be close to the man whose profiles had nailed some of the country’s most notorious serial killers. And donors wanted the vicarious, voyeuristic thrill of the war stories they tried to cajole from him. If he’d learned nothing else from his sojourn in the university, he’d come to understand that he wasn’t cut out to be a performing seal. Whatever talents he possessed, pointless diplomacy had never been among them.

This morning’s encounter with Janine Stirrat felt like the last straw. Tony pulled his keyboard closer and began to compose a letter.

Three hours later, he was struggling to recover his breath. He’d set off far too fast and now he was paying the price. He crouched down and felt the rough grass at his feet. Dry enough to sit on, he decided. He sank to the ground and lay spreadeagled till the thumping in his chest eased off. Then he wriggled into a sitting position and savoured the view. From the top of Largo Law, the Firth of Forth lay before him, glittering in the late spring sunshine. He could see right across to Berwick Law, its volcanic cone the prehistoric twin to his own vantage point, separated now by miles of petrol-blue sea. He checked off the landmarks: the blunt thumb of the Bass Rock, the May Island like a basking humpback whale, the distant blur of Edinburgh. They had a saying in this corner of Fife: ‘If you can see the May Island, it’s going to rain. If you can’t see the May Island, it’s already raining.’ It didn’t look like rain today. Only the odd smudge of cloud broke the blue, like soft streamers of aerated dough pulled from the middle of a morning roll. He was going to miss this when he moved on.

But spectacular views were no justification for turning his back on the true north of his talent. He wasn’t an academic. He was a clinician first and foremost, then a profiler. His resignation would take effect at the end of term, which gave him a couple of months to figure out what he was going to do next.

He wasn’t short of offers. Although his past exploits hadn’t always endeared him to the Home Office establishment, the recent case he’d worked on in Germany and Holland had helped him leapfrog the British bureaucracy. Now the Germans, the Dutch and the Austrians wanted him to work for them as a consultant. Not just on serial murder, but on other criminal activity that treated international frontiers as if they didn’t exist. It was a tempting offer, with a guaranteed minimum that would be just about enough to live on. And it would give him the chance to return to clinical practice, even if it was only part-time.

Then, there was Carol Jordan to consider. As always when she came into his thoughts, his mind veered away from direct confrontation. Somehow, he had to find a way to atone for what had happened to her, without her ever knowing that was what he was trying to do.

And so far, he had no idea how he could achieve that.

Day Two. And still no trace of Tim Golding. In his heavy heart, Merrick knew they were no longer searching for a living child. He’d visited Alastair and Shelley Golding that morning, cut to the bone by the momentary flash of optimism that lit their eyes when he walked into their neat Victorian terraced cottage. As soon as they’d comprehended that he had nothing to offer them, their eyes had glazed over. Fear had gnawed at them till there was nothing left inside but barren hope.

Merrick had left the house feeling bleak and empty. He glanced down the street, thinking ironically that Tim Golding had, in a way, been a victim of gentri-fication. Harriestown, where the Goldings lived, had been a working-class enclave until enterprising young couples in search of affordable housing had begun buying up decaying properties and restoring them, creating a trendy new suburb. What had been lost was a sense of community. The avid followers of Changing Rooms and Home Front were interested in their own lives, not those of their neighbours. Ten years before, Tim Golding would have known most of the people on his street and they would have known him. On a summer evening, people would have been out and about, walking to allotments or from the pub, standing in their doorways chatting as they soaked up the last rays of the sun. Their very presence would have protected the boy. And they would have noticed a stranger, would have clocked his passage and kept an eye on his destination. But these days, those residents of Harriestown not whipping up some exotic recipe from a TV chef in their exquisitely designed new kitchens would have been in their back yards, cut off from neighbours by high walls, designing their Mediterranean courtyard gardens or arranging the Greek urns that held their fresh herbs. Merrick had scowled at the blank doors and windows of the street and longed for a simpler time. He’d headed back to the incident room, feeling ill at ease and jaded.

His team had worked through the night, interviewing the known paedophiles on their patch. Not a single pointer had emerged to move the inquiry forward. A couple of punters had phoned in, reporting a white Transit van cruising slowly round the narrow streets at about the time Tim had disappeared. By chance, one of them had remembered enough of the index number to make it worth checking out on the Police National Computer. They’d identified half a dozen possibles in the local area, which had given the incident room a fresh surge of energy.

But that lead had died on its knees within a matter of hours. The third van on the list belonged to a company who made home deliveries of organic vegetables. The driver had been going slowly because he was new to the round and wasn’t sure of the layout of the local streets. That alone wouldn’t have been enough to get him off the hook. But the clincher was that he’d been accompanied by his fifteen-year-old daughter, augmenting her pocket money by helping him out.

Back to square one. Merrick shoved his hands in his trouser pockets and glared at the pinboard in the incident room. It was pitifully bare. Usually by this stage in a missing-child inquiry, information was pouring in. It certainly had in the Guy Lefevre case, although it had all proved fruitless in the long run. But for some reason all they were getting was a pathetic trickle. Of course there were the time-wasters, calling to say they’d seen Tim on the Eurostar train with an Asian woman; in a McDonald’s in Taunton with a grey-haired man; or shopping for computer games in Inverness. Merrick knew these so-called sightings were worthless. Whoever had taken Tim certainly wouldn’t be parading him round the streets for everyone to see.

Merrick sighed. The images in his head now were not of a small boy playing with his friends. What he saw when he closed his eyes was a shallow woodland grave. A flash of yellow football shirt in the long grass of a field margin. A tangle of limbs in a drainage ditch. Christ, but he felt inadequate to the task.

He racked his brains for some other avenue of approach, summoning up the images of previous bosses, wondering how they would have handled things differently. Popeye Cross would have been convinced their abductor was someone they already had on the books. He’d be sweating the nonces, determined to get a confession out of someone. Merrick was confident he’d covered that already, even though his team knew better than to exert the kind of pressure Popeye had been famous for. These days, you leaned too heavily at your peril. Courts had no patience with police officers who bullied vulnerable suspects.

He thought of Carol Jordan and reached for his cigarettes. She’d have come up with some tangential line of attack, he had no doubt of that. Her mind worked in ways he’d never managed to fathom. His brain was wired differently from hers, and he’d never in a million years arrive at one of her inspired angles. But there was one thing Carol would have done that he could pursue.

Merrick inhaled and reached for the phone. ‘Is the boss in?’ he asked the woman who answered. ‘I’d like to talk to him about Tony Hill.’

John Brandon climbed the steps up from the Barbican station. The dirty yellow bricks seemed to sweat and even the concrete underfoot felt hot and sticky. The air was stuffy with the thick, mingled smells of humanity. It wasn’t the best preparation for what he suspected was going to be a difficult conversation.

No matter how much he’d tried to prepare himself for his meeting with Carol Jordan, he knew he didn’t really have a clue what he’d find. He was certain of only two things: he had no idea how she felt about what had happened to her; and work would be her salvation.

He’d been appalled when he’d heard about the botched undercover mission that had ended with the violent assault on Carol. His informant had tried to stress the significance of what her operation had achieved, as if that were somehow a counterbalance to what had been done to her. But Brandon had cut impatiently across the rationale. He understood the demands of command. He’d given his adult life to the police service and he’d reached the top of the tree with most of his principles intact. One of those was that no officer should ever be exposed to unnecessary risk. Of course danger was part of the job, particularly these days, with guns as much a fashion accessory in some social groups as iPods were in others. But there was acceptable risk and unacceptable risk. And in Brandon’s view, Carol Jordan had been placed in a position of intolerable, improper risk. He simply did not believe there was any end that could have justified such means.

But it was pointless to rage against what had happened. Those responsible were too well insulated for even a Chief Constable to make much of a dent in their lives. The only thing John Brandon could do now for Carol was to offer her a lifeline back into the profession she loved. She’d been probably the best detective he’d ever had under his command, and all his instincts told him she needed to be back in harness.

He’d discussed it with his wife Maggie, laying out his plans before her. ‘What do you think?’ he asked. ‘You know Carol. Do you think she’ll go for it?’

Maggie had frowned, stirring her coffee thoughtfully. ‘It’s not me you should be asking, it’s Tony Hill. He’s the psychologist.’

Brandon shook his head. Tony is the last person I’d ask about Carol. Besides, he’s a man, he can’t understand the implications of rape the way a woman can.’

Maggie’s mouth twisted in acknowledgement. ‘The old Carol Jordan would have bitten your hand off. But it’s hard to imagine what being raped will have done to her. Some women fall to pieces. For some, it becomes the defining moment of their lives. Others lock it away and pretend it never happened. It sits there like a time bomb waiting to blow a hole in their lives. And some find a way to deal with it and move forward. If I had to guess, I’d say Carol would either bury it or else work through it. If she’s burying it, she’ll probably be gung ho to get back to serious work, to prove to herself and the rest of the world that she’s sorted. But she’ll be a loose cannon if that’s what she’s trying to do, and that’s not what you need in this job. However…’ she paused, ‘if she’s looking for a way through, you might be able to persuade her.’

‘Do you think she’d be up to the job?’ Brandon’s bloodhound eyes looked troubled.

‘It’s like what they say about politicians, isn’t it? The very people who volunteer for the job are the last ones who should be doing it. I don’t know, John. You’re going to have to make your mind up when you see her.’

It wasn’t a comforting thought. But he’d since had support from a surprising quarter. The previous afternoon, DI Merrick had sat in his office asking Brandon’s sanction to bring Tony Hill in to profile the disappearance of Tim Golding. As they’d discussed the case, Merrick had said almost wistfully, ‘I can’t help feeling we’d be doing better if we still had DCI Jordan on the team.’

Brandon’s eyebrows had shot up. ‘I hope you’re not having a crisis of confidence, Inspector,’ he said.

Merrick shook his head. ‘No, sir. I know we’re doing everything we can. It’s just that DCI Jordan looks at things differently from anybody else I’ve ever worked with. And with cases like this…well, sometimes it feels like it’s not enough to cover all the bases.’

Brandon knew Merrick had been right. All the more reason why he should do everything in his power to bring Carol Jordan back into the world again. He squared his shoulders and headed for the concrete labyrinth where Carol Jordan waited at the epicentre.

John Brandon was shaken to see the change in Carol Jordan. The woman who waited in the doorway for him to emerge from the lift bore almost no resemblance to his memory of her. He might well have passed her in the street. Her hair was radically different, cut short at the sides, the heavy fringe swept to one side, changing the shape of her face. But she had altered in more fundamental ways. The flesh seemed to have melted from her face, giving it a new arrangement of planes and hollows. Where there had been an expression of intelligent interest in her eyes, now there was a blank wariness. She radiated tension rather than the familiar confidence. In spite of the warmth of the early summer day, she was dressed in a shapeless polo-neck sweater and baggy trousers instead of the sharply tailored suits Brandon was used to seeing her in.

He paused a couple of feet from her. ‘Carol,’ he said. ‘It’s good to see you.’

There was no smile of welcome, just a faint twitch of muscle at the corners of her mouth. ‘Come in, sir,’ she said, stepping back to allow him to enter.

‘No need for formality,’ Brandon said, taking care to keep as much physical distance as possible between them as he walked into the flat. ‘I’ve not been your boss for quite a while now.’

Carol said nothing, leading the way to the pair of sofas that sat at right angles to each other with a view through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the old church at the heart of the Barbican complex. She waited till he sat down, then offered him a drink. ‘Coffee, tea?’

‘Something cold. It’s warm out there today,’ Brandon said, unfastening the jacket of his charcoal suit. Catching her sudden stillness, he stopped awkwardly at the third button and cleared his throat.

‘Mineral water or orange juice?’

‘Water’s fine.’

When she returned with two glasses of water still hissing their effervescence into the air, Carol set Brandon’s in front of him then retreated with her own to the furthest point from him. ‘How are you?’ Brandon asked.

Carol shrugged. ‘Better than I was.’

‘I was shocked when I heard what had happened. And upset too. Maggie and I…well, I know how I’d feel if her, or my daughters…Carol, I can’t imagine how you begin to deal with something like that.’

There isn’t anything like that,’ Carol said sharply, her eyes on his. ‘I was raped, John. No other violation comes close except death, and nobody’s reported back on that yet.’

Brandon took the rebuke on the chin. ‘It should never have happened.’

Carol let out a deep breath. ‘I made mistakes, it’s true. But the real damage was caused by people who set up the operation and never levelled with me about what was really going on. Sadly, not everyone is as scrupulous as you.’ She turned away and crossed her legs tightly. ‘You said there was something you wanted to discuss with me?’ she continued, changing the subject irrevocably.

That’s right. I don’t know how current you are with recent changes in the service in the north?’

Carol shook her head. ‘It’s not what I’ve been paying attention to.’

‘No reason why you should,’ he said gently. ‘But the Home Office in their wisdom have decided East Yorkshire is too small a force and it should be amalgamated. And since my force is the smaller of the two involved in the merger, I’m the one who’s had to give up the top job.’

Carol showed the first sign of animation. ‘I’m sorry to hear that, John. You were a good Chief Constable.’

Thank you. And I hope I will be again. I’m back on my old stamping grounds.’

‘Bradfield?’

Brandon noticed Carol’s body relaxing slightly. He had, he thought, penetrated the hard outer shell. ‘That’s right. They’ve offered me Bradfield Metropolitan Police.’ His lugubrious face creased in a smile. ‘And I’ve said yes.’

‘I’m very pleased for you, John.’ Carol sipped her drink. ‘You’ll do a good job there.’

Brandon shook his head. ‘I didn’t come here for flattery, Carol. I came here because I need you.’

Carol looked away, her eyes fixed on the marled grey stone of the church. ‘I don’t think so, John.’

‘Hear me out. I’m not asking you to come and fly a desk in CID. I want to do something different in Bradfield. I want to set up an operation like the Met has for dealing with serious crime. A couple of elite major incident squads on permanent standby to catch the tough ones. All they do is the big cases, the really bad lads. And if there’s a lull in the action, the squad can pick up cold cases and work them.’

She turned her head towards him and gave him a shrewd, considering look. ‘And you think I’m what you need?’

‘I want you to be in charge of the unit and to have hands-on leadership of one squad. This is the sort of stuff you do best, Carol. The combination of intelligence and instinct and solid police work.’

She rubbed the back of her neck with a hand chill from her water glass. ‘Maybe once,’ she said. ‘I don’t think that’s who I am any more.’

Brandon shook his head. ‘These things don’t go away. You’re the best detective I ever had working for me, even if there were times when you came close to overstepping the mark. But you were always right when you pushed it that far. And I need that level of skill and guts on my team.’

Carol stared down at the brightly coloured gabbeh on the floor as if it held the answer. ‘I don’t think so, John. I come with rather too much baggage these days.’

‘You’d be reporting directly to me. No petty bureaucrats between us. You’d be working with some of your old colleagues, Carol. People who know who you are and what you’ve achieved. Not people who are going to make snap judgements about you based on rumour and half-truth. The likes of Don Merrick and Kevin Matthews. Men who respect you.’ The unspoken hung in the air. There was nowhere else she could expect that sort of reception and they both knew it.

‘It’s a very generous offer, John.’ Carol met his gaze, a world of weariness in her eyes. ‘But I think you deserve an easier ride than hiring me will get you.’

‘Let me be the judge of that,’ Brandon said, his natural air of authority suddenly emerging from the mildness he’d shown so far. ‘Carol, your work was always a large part of who you were. I understand why you don’t want to go back into intelligence and, in your shoes, I wouldn’t touch those bastards with a ten-foot pole. But policing is in your blood. Forgive me if this sounds presumptuous, but I don’t think you’re going to get over this until you get back on the horse.’

Carol’s eyes widened. Brandon wondered if he’d gone too far and waited for the whip of irony that he’d once have earned, regardless of rank.

‘Have you been talking to Tony Hill?’ she demanded.

Brandon couldn’t hide his surprise. Tony? No, I haven’t spoken to him in…oh, it must be more than a year. Why do you say that?’

‘He says the same thing,’ she said flatly. ‘I wondered if I was being ganged up on.’

‘No, this was all my own idea. But you know, Tony’s not a bad judge.’

‘Maybe so. But neither of you can know much about what it’s like to be me these days. I’m not sure the old rules apply any more. John, I can’t make a decision about this now. I need time to think.’

Brandon drained his glass. ‘Take all the time you need.’ He got to his feet. ‘Call me if you want to talk in more detail.’ He took a business card from his pocket and placed it on the table. She looked at it as if it might suddenly burst into flames. ‘Let me know what you decide.’

Carol nodded wearily. ‘I will. But don’t build your plans around me, John.’

It’s never silent inside Bradfield Moor Secure Hospital. Well, not anywhere they’ve ever let you go. All the films and TV shows you’ve seen make you think there are probably padded cells somewhere no sound can reach, but you’d probably have to go completely tonto to end up there. Scream, foam at the mouth, deck one of the staff–that sort of thing. And while the idea of being somewhere quiet is appealing, you reckon it won’t do your chances of release much good if you fake a full-on madhead attack just to get enough peace to hear the Voice properly.

When you first arrived at Bradfield Moor, you tried to get to sleep as soon as the lock’s click signalled you were shut in for the night. But all you could hear were muffled conversations, occasional screams and sobs, feet slapping down corridors. You pulled the thin pillow over your head and tried to blank it. It didn’t often work. The anonymous noises scared you, left you wondering if your door would suddenly burst open and front you up with who the fuck knew what. Instead of sleep, you’d get edgy and wired. Morning would come and you’d be exhausted, your eyes gritty and sore, your hands shaking like some fucked-up alkie. Worst of all, in that state, you couldn’t tune in to the Voice. You were too wound up to find the technique to beat the background.

It took a few weeks, a few hellish, terrifying weeks, but eventually your slow brain worked out that it might be worth trying to go with the flow. Now, when the lights go out, you lie on your back, breathing deeply, telling yourself the noises outside are meaningless background chatter that you don’t have to pay attention to. And sooner or later they fade like radio static, leaving you alone with the Voice. Your lips move silently as you relive the message, and you’re gone somewhere else. Somewhere good.

It’s a beautiful thing. You can replay the slow build-up to your greatest achievements. It’s all there, spread before you. The choosing of a sacrifice. The negotiation. Following her to the place that you’re going to transform with blood. The stupid trust they had that Dozy Derek wasn’t going to hurt them. And the look in their eyes when you turned to face them with their worst nightmare in your hand.

The rerun never quite makes it to the finale. It’s the eyes that do it, every time. You relive the moment when it dawns on them, the terror that turns them the colour of milk and your hand tightens on your cock. Your back arches, your hips thrust upwards, your lips stretch back over your teeth as you come. And then you hear the Voice, triumphant and rich, praising you for your role in the cleansing.

It’s the best moment in your cramped little world. Other people might think differently, but you know how lucky you are. All you want now is to get out of here, to get back to the Voice. Nothing else will do.

PART TWO

Ten weeks later

He can’t remember the first time he heard the Voice. It makes him ashamed these days that he didn’t recognize it instantly. Thinking about it now, he finds it hard to believe it took him so long to get it. Because it was different from all the other voices he heard every day. It didn’t take the piss. It didn’t get impatient with him for being slow. It didn’t treat him like a stupid kid. The Voice gave him respect. He’d never had that before, which was probably why he didn’t get the message for so long. It took a while before it dawned on him what was on offer.

Now, he can’t imagine being without it. It’s like chocolate or alcohol or spliff. The world would go on without them, but why would anybody want it to? There are times and places where he knows he’ll hear it: the message service on his mobile, the minidisks that turn up without warning in the pocket of his parka, alone in bed late at night. But, sometimes, it comes out of the blue. A soft breath on his neck and there it is, the Voice. The first time that happened, he nearly crapped himself. Talk about blowing it! But he’s learned since then. Now, in public places, he knows how to react so nobody thinks twice about what’s going on.

The Voice gives him presents, too. OK, other people have given him things in the past, but mostly worthless crap they didn’t want or second-hand stuff they were finished with. The Voice is different. The Voice gives him things that are just for him. Things that are still in their boxes and bags, bought and paid for, not nicked. The minidisk player. The Diesel jeans. The Zippo lighter with the brass skull and cross-bones that feels good when he rubs his thumb over it. The videos that fire him up with thoughts of what he’d like to do to the street girls he sees every day.

When he asked why, the Voice said it was because he was worthy. He didn’t understand that. Still doesn’t, not really. The Voice said he would earn the gifts, but it didn’t say how, not for ages. That was probably his fault. He’s not quick on the uptake. It takes him a while to get the hang of things.

But he likes to please. That’s one of the first things he can remember learning. Make people smile, give them what they want and there’s a better chance of avoiding a beating. So he paid attention when the Voice started to teach him his lessons because he knew that if he kept the Voice happy there was more chance it’d stay around. And he wants it to stay around, because it makes him feel good. Not many things have ever made him feel good.

So he listens and he tries to understand. He knows now about the poison the girls spread on the street. He knows that even the ones who have been kind to him are only after what they can get. This makes sense to him; he remembers how often they’ve tried to sweet-talk him into doing them a better deal, and how vicious they get when he sticks to what he’s supposed to give them in exchange for their crumpled notes. He knows now those bitches have to be cleansed, and that he’s going to be part of that cleansing.

It won’t be long. Every night when he turns out the light, the Voice whispers through the silence, telling him how it will be. At first, it scared him. He wasn’t sure he could handle the way the walls seemed to be talking to him. And he didn’t think he could do what was being asked of him. But now when he listens in that half-world between wake-fulness and sleep, he thinks maybe he can do this. One step at a time, that’s how you get where you want to be. That’s what the Voice says. And if he looks at it step by step, there’s nothing so hard about it. Not till the very end.

He’s never done anything like that before. But he’s seen the videos, again and again. He knows how good it feels to watch. And the Voice tells him it’ll be a million times better to do it for real. And that makes sense too, because everything the Voice has told him so far has been the truth. And now the time has come. Tonight’s the night.

He can hardly wait.

Chapter 2

Carol Jordan tossed her briefcase on to the passenger seat and got into the silver mid-range saloon she’d chosen specifically for its anonymity. She put the key in the ignition, but couldn’t quite bring herself to start the engine. Christ, what was she doing? Her hands were clammy with sweat, her chest tight with anxiety. How the hell was she going to walk into a squad-room and energize her troops when her mouth was so dry her tongue stuck to her teeth?

She stared up at the small windows high on the walls of the underground car park. Feet hurried past, making their way to work. Polished loafers, scuffed shoes, kitten heels and pumps. Legs clad in suit trousers, jeans, opaque black tights and sheer nylon. City-centre hikers, taking the morning in their stride. Why couldn’t she do the same thing?

‘Get a grip, Jordan,’ she muttered under her breath, turning the key and firing the engine. It wasn’t as if she was going to have to confront a room full of strangers. Her squad was small, hand-picked by her and Brandon. Most of them she’d worked with before and she knew they respected her. Or at least they once had. She hoped their respect was still strong enough to withstand the temptation to pity.

Carol eased the car out of the garage into the street. It was all so familiar and yet so different. When she’d lived and worked in Bradfield before, the loft apartment in the converted warehouse that occupied a whole block had been her home, a high eyrie that allowed her to feel both part of and apart from the city she policed. When she’d moved to London, she’d sold it to her brother and his girlfriend. Now she was back living inside the same four walls, but this time as the reluctant cuckoo in a nest created by Michael and Lucy. They’d changed almost every aspect of the flat, making Carol feel even more out of place. Once, she’d have shrugged off that feeling, secure in the knowledge that she had a workplace where she was at home. What she feared today was that she’d feel as much of an outsider inside the police station as outside.

Even Bradfield itself felt like a too-familiar stranger. When she’d lived and worked here before, she’d made a point of learning the city. She’d visited the local museum in a bid to understand the forces that had shaped Bradfield over the centuries, turning it from a hamlet of shepherds and weavers into a vigorous commercial centre that had vied with Manchester to be the northern capital of the Victorian empire. She’d learned of its decline in the post-war era, then the reinvigoration that had been kick-started by successive waves of immigration at the tail end of the last century. She’d studied the architecture, learning to appreciate the Italianate influences on the older buildings, trying to see how the city had grown organically, attempting to imagine what the hideous 1960s concrete office blocks and shopping centre had vanquished. She’d mapped the city in her mind, using her days off to walk the streets, drive the neighbourhoods until she could grasp immediately the kind of environment she was about to enter just from the address of the crime scene.

But this morning, Carol’s old knowledge seemed to have fled. New road markings and one-way systems had mushroomed in her absence, forcing her to concentrate on her bearings in a way she hadn’t expected. Driving to the central police station should have been automatic. But it took her twice as long as she’d estimated and relief washed through her as she eventually turned into the car park. Carol nosed forward towards the dedicated parking spaces, pleased to see that at least one of John Brandon’s promises had already been kept. One of the few empty slots bore the freshly painted designation, ‘DCI JORDAN’.

Walking into the station itself provided a brief moment of déjà vu. Here at least nothing seemed to have altered. The back entrance hall still smelled faintly of cigarette smoke and stale fat from the canteen on the floor below. Whatever cosmetic changes might have been imposed on the public areas, no decorators had been charged with making this entrance more appealing. The walls were still the same industrial grey, the noticeboard covered with what were possibly the same yellowing memos she’d last seen years ago. Carol walked up to the counter and nodded a greeting at the PC behind the desk. ‘DCI Jordan reporting to the Major Incident Team.’

The middle-aged man rubbed a hand across his grizzled crew cut and smiled. ‘Welcome aboard,’ he said. ‘End of the corridor, take the lift up to the third floor. You’re in Room 316.’

‘Thanks.’ Carol managed a thin smile and turned to push open the door as the lock buzzed. Unconsciously squaring her shoulders and tilting her chin up, she walked briskly down the corridor, ignoring the occasional curious glance from uniformed officers she passed on the way.

The third floor had undergone a facelift since she’d left. The walls were painted lavender to waist height, then off-white. The old wooden doors had been replaced with plate glass and steel, the central sections frosted so the casual passer-by could see little of what was going on inside the offices. It looked more like an advertising agency than a police station, she thought as she reached the door of 316.

Carol took a deep breath and pushed the door open. A handful of curious faces glanced up at her then broke into smiles of welcome. First on his feet was Don Merrick, newly promoted to inspector. He’d been her bagman on her first serial killer inquiry, the case that had proved to those who cared about that sort of thing that she had what it took to go all the way. Solid, reliable Don, she thought gratefully as he crossed the room and extended his hand.

‘Great to see you back, ma’am,’ he said, reaching out to cup her elbow with his free hand as they shook. Although he towered over her, Carol was pleasantly surprised to find nothing unsettling in his bulk. ‘I’m really looking forward to working with you again.’

Detective Sergeant Kevin Matthews was right behind Merrick. Kevin, who had redeemed himself after an act of monumental stupidity had nearly cost him his career. Even though she’d been the person responsible for uncovering his treachery, Carol was nevertheless glad to see he’d apparently rehabilitated himself. He had been too good a detective to waste on the mindless routine of uniformed work. She hoped he wouldn’t mind too much that they’d once been equals in rank. ‘Kevin,’ she acknowledged him. ‘Good to see you.’

His pale, freckled skin flushed pink. ‘Welcome back to Bradfield,’ he said.

The others were crowding round now. ‘Good to see you, chief,’ a woman’s voice said from behind her. Carol half-turned to see the slight figure of Detective Constable Paula McIntyre grinning up at her. Paula had worked on the periphery of the murder squad that had tracked down the psychopath who had butchered four young men in the city. She’d only been a CID aide on secondment then, but Carol had remembered her attention to detail and her empathetic way with witnesses. According to Brandon, she’d since established herself as one of the best interviewers in the city’s CID. Carol knew exactly how important that could be in a murder inquiry, where everything happened against the clock. Someone skilled at persuading people to remember all they knew could save time at a stage when time could mean lives.

Paula pushed forward a mixed-race man standing beside her. ‘This is DC Evans,’ she said. ‘Sam, this is DCI Jordan.’

Carol extended a hand. Evans seemed almost reluctant to take it, not meeting her eye as they shook. Carol gave him a quick look of appraisal. He wasn’t much taller than she was; he must barely have made the height requirement, she thought. His tightly curled hair was cut close to his head, his features more Caucasian than African. His skin was the colour of caramelized sugar and a fuzzy goatee gave him an air of maturity at odds with the unlined youthfulness of his face. She summoned up Brandon’s notes on the young detective: ‘A quiet lad. But he’s not afraid to speak up when he’s got something to say. He’s smart and he’s got that killer knack for pulling information together and making sense of it. He wants to go all the way, though he hides it well. But that means he’ll pull out all the stops for you.’ It looked like she’d have to take Brandon’s word for it.

One person hung back on the fringes of the group. DC Stacey Chen had a small, fixed smile on her face. She was the unknown quantity. These days, any major inquiry needed an officer who understood how the systems worked and who could manage the volume of information generated. Carol had asked Brandon to recommend someone, and he’d come back within twenty-four hours with Stacey. ‘She’s got a Masters in computing, she knows the systems inside out and she’s a grafter. She keeps herself to herself, but she understands the importance of being part of the team,’ he’d said. ‘And she’s ambitious.’

Carol remembered what that felt like. Ambition had deserted her along with her dignity in Berlin, but she could still recall the sharp burn of desire to be on the next rung of the ladder. Carol sidestepped Evans and offered her hand to Stacey. ‘Hi. You must be Stacey. I’m glad to have you on the team.’

Stacey’s brown eyes never left Carol’s. ‘I appreciate the chance,’ she said in a strong London accent.

Carol’s eyes swept the room. ‘We’re one short,’ she said.

‘Oh yeah,’ Merrick said. ‘DS Chris Devine. We had a message yesterday: her mother’s been diagnosed with terminal cancer. She’s requested permission to stay with the Met for the time being. The Chief agreed.’

Carol shook her head, faintly exasperated. ‘Great. We’re under strength before we even get started.’ She looked around, assessing the room for the first time. There were half a dozen desks, each with a computer terminal. Whiteboards and cork boards lined one wall, next to an overhead projector. A large-scale laminated map of Bradfield filled most of the space by the door. The windows that ran the length of the opposite wall were obscured by vertical blinds, cutting out the distractions of the cityscape. It was a decent size: not too cramped, not so big they’d feel marooned. It would do, she decided. ‘Don, where’s my office?’

Merrick pointed to the far end of the room where two doors closed off a pair of offices. ‘Take your pick. They’re both empty.’

And neither offered much in the way of privacy, she thought. She chose the one that had windows on the outside world and turned to Merrick, who had followed her down the room. ‘Call whoever’s responsible for housekeeping round here. I want some blinds for the internal window.’

Merrick grinned. ‘Don’t want us to know when you’re playing Solitaire, eh?’

‘I prefer FreeCell, actually. Give me half an hour to get settled in here, then we’ll have a briefing.’

‘Fine by me.’ He ducked out of the room, leaving her alone. It was, she thought, a relief. She switched on the computer. Seconds later, she saw Evans approaching, his arms laden with a bundle of files. She jumped up to open the door.

‘What’s all this?’ she asked.

‘Open cases–the most recent ones. They were delivered yesterday teatime. What we’re supposed to be working on while we wait for the next big thing.’

Carol felt her blood stirring. At last, something she could focus on. Something that might just lay her demons to rest. Or at least shut them up for a while.

Aidan Hart studied the man sitting opposite him with a degree of wariness. He knew many of his colleagues thought he was too young at thirty-seven to be clinical director of Bradfield Moor Secure Hospital, but he was confident enough of his skills to write off their disapproval as the product of disappointment and envy. He knew that none of them presented any professional challenge to him.

But his latest appointment was in a different league. Dr Tony Hill came with a reputation for both brilliance and awkwardness. The only rules he observed were the ones that mattered to him. He wasn’t a team player, unless the team in question was one he’d chosen. He’d won loyal respect and engendered fury in equal measures among those he’d worked with. When Tony Hill had applied for a part-time post at his hospital, Aidan Hart’s first reaction had been to refuse. There was room for only one star at Bradfield Moor, and that was him.

Then he’d had second thoughts. If Hill was only there as a part-timer, his work could be carefully channelled. His successes could be parlayed into more credit for Hart himself, the visionary clinical director who had tamed the maverick. It was a tempting prospect. He could portray himself as the man who persuaded high-flyer Tony Hill back into clinical practice. He had convinced himself that while the patients might benefit from Hill’s famous empathetic skills, the ultimate beneficiary would be Aidan Hart himself. His second thoughts had been reinforced when he’d met Hill in the flesh. Aidan Hart knew all about dressing to impress, but within seconds he realized Hill had obviously missed that particular tutorial. The little guy in the chair opposite with the bad haircut, brown shoes with black trousers and greenish tweed jacket with frayed cuffs wasn’t going to make ripples in the sort of pond Hart intended to swim in. Hill had seemed embarrassed by the high profile his work with the police had earned him and had stressed that he didn’t want to find himself in the public eye ever again. Whatever profiling he did in future would be behind closed doors and beyond distant borders. Hill’s eagerness to get back into harness at the sharp end of clinical practice was almost pathetic.

At the time, Hart had been smugly satisfied that taking a chance on Tony Hill would be the best possible decision. Somehow he’d missed the penetrating intelligence of the eyes, the unmistakable charisma the man wore like a well-cut suit. Hart wasn’t quite sure how that had happened. Unless, of course, Hill had deliberately disguised it in order to make a quite different kind of impression. And that was a very unsettling thought. He liked to think of himself as the analyst. He was uncomfortable with the idea that this time, he might have been played by a higher master in the art of reading human behaviour. He couldn’t help wondering whether he was the latest object of scrutiny for those startlingly blue eyes that seemed to absorb every nuance of his body language. He didn’t like the thought that he’d have to monitor his every word and movement in his newest employee’s presence. Aidan Hart had his secrets, and he didn’t want Tony Hill probing too closely into them.

He didn’t think he was being paranoid. Hill had only been in the building for an hour, but already he’d played a blinder. He’d found out about the latest admission and now he was sitting opposite Hart, one ankle casually propped on the opposite knee, making an irresistible rationale for first crack at the new patient. It was the sort of case that led to published papers in well-respected peer-reviewed publications, and already Hill was staking a claim to territory Hart wanted for himself. ‘After all,’ Hill said, ‘since we’ve got a new admission, it makes sense for me to take the case on. That way I won’t have to go over old ground. And nobody’s nose gets put out of joint because I’m taking over their patient.’

‘It’s a pretty extreme place to start,’ Hart said, affecting concern. ‘And you have been out of the field for a while.’

Tony’s mouth twitched in a half-smile. ‘Extreme is my comfort zone, Aidan. And I do have very direct experience of dealing with people who kill for reasons that most people dismiss as madness.’

Hart shifted in his chair and spread his hands, as if discarding responsibility. ‘So be it. I look forward to seeing your initial report.’

Carol leaned against the whiteboard and waited for her new team to settle down. Then she moved closer to them and perched on the edge of a desk. ‘Before we get down to business, there’s something I have to say to you,’ she said, trying to sound more relaxed than she felt. ‘I know how rumours spread in this job and I expect you’ve all heard some version of my recent history.’ She could tell by the way the men all found something more interesting to study that she’d hit the target.

Don Merrick gazed at the floor. ‘Nobody here’s interested in gossip,’ he muttered. ‘Just results. And your record speaks for itself on that.’

The shadow of a smile crossed Carol’s face. ‘Thank you, Don. Nevertheless, if we’re going to make this unit work, we need to have an open, honest atmosphere. What happened to me happened because of secrets and lies. I’m not prepared to work in an environment like that again.’ She looked around, saw she had their attention and continued.

‘I was selected for an undercover operation that left me in a very exposed position. Because I wasn’t thoroughly briefed by my bosses, I couldn’t cover my back properly. And as a result, I was raped.’ She heard a sharp intake of breath but couldn’t identify its source. ‘I don’t expect to be handled with kid gloves. What happened to me won’t affect the way I do my job. Except that it has made me very sensitive to issues of loyalty. This squad can only function if we all put teamwork first. I don’t want any glory hunters here. So if any of you has a problem with that, this is the time to ask for reassignment.’ She looked around at her group. Stacey and Evans looked surprised, but the others were nodding their acquiescence.

Carol stood up straight and picked up the top file. ‘Good. Now, until we land our first job, we’re supposed to be looking at unsolved open cases. They’ve given us two murders, a rape, two armed robberies, a serial arson and a pair of child abductions. Over the next few days, I want you each to go through three separate files. Don, work out a rota so all the cases get looked at. Include me in it–since we’re one light, I’ll make up the numbers. On each file, I want you to list suggested actions for moving the case forward. Then, when you’ve all made your lists, we’ll sit down together, look at what you’ve come up with and see which cases offer the most promising prospects for further investigation. Any questions?’

Kevin raised a hand. ‘Is this a non-smoking office?’

Paula groaned. ‘It’s a non-smoking building, Kevin.’

‘Yeah, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have smoking areas, does it? I mean, what is the point of air conditioning if you don’t make it earn its keep?’

‘It’s bad for the computers,’ Stacey pointed out.

‘We could have one corner,’ Evans said. ‘Under the air-conditioning vent.’

As the discussion rolled over her, Carol felt the first twinges of homecoming. Never mind the adrenaline of working a case, this was the kind of argument that told her she was back where she belonged. Pointless wrangling about the small issues that made life bearable, that was the hallmark of the police service. ‘Sort it out among yourselves,’ she said with an air of finality. ‘I don’t care. I’ve got a door I can close. Oh, and I’ve got a job for you, Sam…’

He looked up, surprise on his face. ‘Guv?’ He shifted in his seat, turning slightly to one side. It was the movement of a man unconsciously reducing his target area, assessing the situation before committing himself to fight or flight.

‘Pop out to the shops and buy us a kettle, a cafetière and a dozen mugs.’ His eyes hardened as Carol’s words sank in. ‘Tea and some decent coffee, milk and sugar. Oh, and some biscuits. We’re not going to win any popularity contests in the canteen, digging over what other officers will see as their failures. We might as well entrench ourselves here.’

‘Can we get some Earl Grey tea?’ Stacey Chen’s contribution sounded more like an order than a request.

‘Don’t see why not,’ Carol said, turning away and heading for her office. She’d learned something already. Evans didn’t like what he saw as menial work. Either he considered it to be women’s work or he thought it was beneath his capabilities. Carol stored the information away for future reference. She had almost reached the door when Merrick’s voice reached her in a protest.

‘Ma’am, do you know why the files on Tim Golding and Guy Lefevre are in here?’ he demanded indignantly.

Carol swung round. ‘Who…?’ She was aware of a sudden stillness in the room. Paula’s stare was wary, while the others’ expressions varied from surprised to incredulous.

Merrick’s genial face had tightened. Tim Golding’s the eight-year-old who went missing nearly three months ago. Guy Lefevre vanished into thin air fifteen months before. We turned the city upside down looking for them. We even got Tony Hill to draw up a profile, for all the good it did.’

It was Carol’s turn to feel surprise. Tony had said nothing to her about profiling, never mind profiling in Bradfield. But then, he had been uncharacteristically quiet since they’d discussed whether she should take up John Brandon’s offer. He’d encouraged her to accept the job, but since she’d told him of her decision to go ahead, his emails had been curiously bland and noncommittal, as if he was deliberately making her stand on her own two feet. ‘What’s your point, Don?’ she asked.

‘Tim Golding was my case,’ he said angrily. ‘And I was the bagman on Guy Lefevre. There’s nothing we left undone.’

‘Now you understand why we’re going to be the station pariahs,’ Carol said gently. ‘There are another half-dozen SIOs out there smarting because cases they couldn’t close have been passed on to us. I wouldn’t be surprised if Tim Golding’s case had been put in deliberately to keep us on our toes. So even though I have every confidence that you did all you could, we’re still going to treat this case just like the others.’

Merrick scowled. ‘All the same, ma’am…’

There are people in this organization who would probably be very happy to see us fail. If you let this wind you up, Don, you’re playing into their hands.’ Carol gave him her warmest smile. ‘I trust you, otherwise you wouldn’t be in this room. But we’re all capable of missing something, no matter how much we think we’ve covered all the ground. So I don’t want the officers reviewing this case to keep their thoughts to themselves for fear of offending you. Like I said earlier: no secrets or lies.’

Carol didn’t wait for a reaction. She walked into her office, leaving the door open. Was this the first sign that someone was out to undermine her squad and, by extension, their new Chief Constable? She knew she fell too easily into mistrust these days, but she’d rather be too cautious than blithely oblivious to someone putting the shaft in. After all, it wasn’t paranoia if they really were out to get you.

She’d barely settled behind her desk when Don Merrick appeared in the doorway carrying a file. ‘A word, ma’am?’

Carol gestured towards the visitor’s chair with her head. Don sat down, holding the file to his chest. Tim Golding,’ he said.

‘I hear you, Don. Hand it over.’

He pulled it even closer to him. ‘It’s just that…’

‘I know. If anybody’s going to poke their nose into your case, you’d rather it was me than one of the new faces.’ Carol reached a hand out.

Reluctantly, Don shifted forward in his seat and extended the file towards her. ‘We couldn’t have done more,’ he said. ‘We just kept hitting brick walls. We couldn’t even give Tony Hill enough to go on to make a profile worthwhile. He said himself it was a waste of resources. But I couldn’t think of anything else to try. That’s why it’s ended up as a cold case this early on.’

‘I wondered about that. It seems very soon to consign it to the back burner.’

Don sighed. There just wasn’t anywhere else for us to go with it. We’ve still got a couple of DCs keeping an eye on it, feeding the press whenever they decide to take another crack at it. But nothing active’s happened for at least a month.’ Don’s misery was written all over him, from the hangdog eyes to the slump of his shoulders.

It provoked a sympathetic echo in Carol. ‘Leave it with me, Don. I don’t expect I’ll see anything you’ve missed.’

He got to his feet, a rueful look on his face. Thing is, ma’am, I remember when I was working the case that I wished you were around. Just so I could run it past you. You always had the knack of seeing things from a different angle.’

‘What is it they say, Don? Don’t wish too hard for what you want because you might get it.’

Tony Hill leaned forward and gazed intently through the observation window. A neat, balding man sat folded in the chair bolted to the floor. He looked somewhere in the region of fifty, though his placid expression went some way towards erasing the lines etched into his face. For a fleeting, incomprehensible moment, Tony thought of a child’s lollipop, tightly wrapped in cellophane, Sellotape wrapped around the stick.

His stillness was preternatural. Most of the patients Tony encountered had difficulty with immobility, never mind tranquillity. They twitched, they fidgeted, they chain-smoked, they fiddled with their clothes. But this man–he checked the notes–this Tom Storey had an almost Zen-like quality. Tony glanced through the notes again, refreshing his memory from the previous evening’s reading. He shook his head, fighting his anger at the stupidity of some of his medical colleagues. Then he closed the folder and headed for the interview room.

He felt the spring in his step, even in that short journey. Bradfield Moor Secure Hospital wasn’t generally associated in people’s minds with the notion of contentment, but that was precisely what it had given Tony for the first time in months. He was back in the field, back in the world of messy heads, back where he belonged. In spite of his constant efforts to assume a series of masks that would help him blend in, Tony knew he was an outsider in the world beyond the grim institutional walls of Bradfield Moor. It was a feeling he did not care to examine too closely; it said things about him that he wasn’t entirely comfortable with. But it was impossible to deny that the exercise of empathy was what gave meaning to his days. There was nothing quite like that moment when the tumblers of someone else’s brain clicked into place for him and allowed him to penetrate the knotted logic of another mind. Really, truly, nothing.

He pushed open the door to the interview room and sat down opposite his latest challenge. Tom Storey remained immobile, only his eyes shifting to connect with Tony. In his right hand, he cradled a heavily bandaged stump where his left hand had been until a few days previously. Tony leaned forward and arranged his face into an expression of sympathy. I’m Tony Hill. I’m sorry for your loss.’

Storey’s eyes widened in surprise. Then he gave a small snort. ‘My hand or my kids?’ he said sourly.

‘Your son and your daughter,’ Tony said. ‘I imagine the hand feels like a blessing.’

Storey said nothing.

‘Alien Hand Syndrome,’ Tony said. ‘First recorded in 1908. A gift for horror-film scriptwriters: 1924, The Hands of Orlac- Conrad Veidt played a classical pianist who had the hands of a killer grafted on after his were destroyed in a train accident; 1946, The Beast with Five Fingers, another pianist; 1987, Evil Dead II– the hero takes a chainsaw to his possessed hand to stop it attacking him. Cheap thrills all round. But it’s not so thrilling when you’re the one with the hand, is it? Because when you try to explain what it feels like, nobody really takes you seriously. Nobody took you seriously, did they, Tom?’

Storey shifted in his seat but remained silent and apparently composed.

‘The GP gave you some tranquillizers. Stress, that’s what he said, right?’

Storey inclined his head slightly.

Tony smiled, encouraging. They didn’t work, did they? Just made you feel sleepy and out of it. And with a hand like yours, you couldn’t afford to relax your vigilance, could you? Because there was no telling what might happen then. How was it for you, Tom? Did you wake up in the night struggling for breath because the hand was round your throat? Did it smash plates over your head? Stop you from putting food in your mouth?’ Tony’s questioning was gentle, his voice sympathetic.

Storey cleared his throat. ‘It threw things. We’d all be sitting eating breakfast, and I’d pick up the teapot and throw it at my wife. Or we’d be out in the garden and the next thing I’d know, I’d be picking up stones from the rockery and throwing them at the kids.’ He leaned back in his chair, apparently exhausted from the effort of speech.

‘I can imagine how frightening that must have been. How did your wife react?’

Storey closed his eyes. ‘She was going to leave me. Take the kids with her and never come back.’

‘And you love your kids. That’s a hell of a dilemma for you. You’ve nothing to fight back with. Life without your kids, it’s not worth living. But life with your kids places them in constant danger because you can’t stop the hand doing what it wants. There’s no easy answer.’ Tony paused and Storey opened his eyes again. ‘You must have been in complete turmoil.’

‘Why are you making excuses for me? I’m a monster. I killed my children, that’s the worst thing anybody can do. They should have let me bleed to death, not saved me. I deserve to be dead.’ Storey’s words tumbled over each other.

‘You’re not a monster,’ Tony said. ‘I don’t think your kids are the only victims here. We’re going to run some physical tests. Tom, I think you may be suffering from a brain tumour. You see, your brain comes in two halves. Messages from one part reach the other across a sort of bridge called the corpus callosum. When that’s damaged, your right hand literally doesn’t know what your left hand is doing. And that’s a terrible thing to live with. I can’t blame you for being driven to the point where you thought killing your children was the only way to keep them safe from whatever you might do to them.’

‘You should blame me,’ Storey insisted. ‘I was their father. It was my job to protect them. Not kill them.’

‘But you couldn’t trust yourself. So you chose to end their lives in the most humane way you could. Smothering them while they slept.’

Storey’s eyes filled with tears and he bowed his head. ‘It was wrong,’ he said, his voice choking. ‘But nobody would listen to me. Nobody would help me.’

Tony reached across the table and laid his hand on the bandaged stump. ‘We’ll help you now, Tom. I promise you. We’ll help you.’

Carol arched her back and rotated her shoulders, swivelling round in her chair to stare out of the window. Across the street stood a white Portland stone building with a fine neoclassical portico. When she’d last been in Bradfield, it had been a bingo hall. Now it was a nightclub, its cold neon tubes spelling out ‘Afrodite’ in fake Greek script. Buses rumbled past, advertising the latest movies and console games. A traffic warden stalked the metered parking, his computerized ticket machine held like a truncheon. A world going about its business, insulated from the unpleasantness that was her stock in trade. She’d read the material on Guy Lefevre and now she was close to the end of Tim Golding’s file. The words were starting to blur. Apart from a half-hour break for lunch, she’d been reading solidly all day. She knew she wasn’t the only one. Every time she’d raised her head, the rest of the squad had been equally engrossed. Interesting how their body language seemed to reveal so much more of their personalities than the slightly awkward and guarded conversation over the lunchtime sandwiches Stacey had fetched from the canteen.

Don sat hunched over his desk, one arm round the file like a kid who doesn’t want anybody copying his work. He wasn’t the quickest wit Carol had ever worked with, but he made up for it with his stolid persistence and total commitment to the team. And if there was one person whose loyalty she could depend on without question, it was Don. He’d proved himself in the past, but she hadn’t realized until this morning how important that knowledge was to her.

Kevin’s wiry body sat erect in his chair, papers neatly aligned. Every now and again he would pause and stare into the middle distance for as long as it took to smoke a cigarette. Then he would scribble something on the pad next to him and return to his reading. Carol remembered how he’d always seemed so buttoned up. It had made it all the harder to believe when he’d gone off the rails. But like most repressed individuals, when he had finally broken the rules he’d been more reckless than the wildest risk taker. And it had led him into betrayal. Carol told herself that he’d never make that mistake again, but she was still reluctant to trust. She hoped he couldn’t see that in her eyes.

Sam Evans was hunched in the chair opposite Kevin, his jacket carefully arranged on a hanger hooked over a filing-cabinet drawer handle. His shirt was crisp and white, the careful creases of the iron still clean cut on his sleeves. He and Kevin had staked out smokers’ corner on the opposite side of the room to Stacey and her computers. Evans’ reading style seemed almost nonchalant, as if he were drifting through the Sunday papers. His expression gave nothing away. But occasionally his hand would snake into his trouser pocket and emerge with a minidisk recorder. He’d mumble a few words into it then slip it back out of sight. Carol didn’t think much was getting past him.

Paula, conversely, was a spreader. Within half an hour of starting, the whole of her desktop was covered in stacks of papers as she sorted through the file in front of her. But in spite of the appearance of untidiness, it was clear she knew where everything was. Her hand moved, apparently independent of her eyes, confidently picking up the next piece of paper she needed. It was as if she had a mental map of her arrangement, a neat grid stamped firmly on her brain. Carol wondered if that was how she worked interviews; slotting every piece of information into its own socket till the connections linked together and lit up like a completed circuit.

Stacey couldn’t have been more different. Even her dress style was at odds with Paula’s casual T-shirt and jeans. Stacey’s suit fitted as if it had been made to measure, and the fine polo-neck sweater beneath it looked like cashmere to Carol’s eye. A surprisingly expensive outfit for a detective constable, she thought. When it came to work, it was almost as if Stacey resented the presence of paper. She’d balanced the file she was studying on a pulled-out desk drawer to leave her work surface clear for interaction with the machine. The twin screens of her computer system held most of her attention. She would swiftly scrutinize the file material, then her fingers would fly over the keys before she cocked her head to one side, ran her left hand through her glossy black hair and clicked a mouse button. Manipulable virtuality was seemingly what she craved over reality.

It was, Carol thought, a group with enough variety in their skills and attributes to cover most of the bases. The key question was whether she could get them to bond into a unit. Until they felt part of a team, they would be less than the sum of their parts. She sighed. Somewhere in her near future, she could see a night out with her officers. On balance, she’d rather have spent a day in the dentist’s chair without benefit of anaesthetic. She hadn’t been out on the town since she’d come back from Germany. Even going to familiar restaurants with friends had been beyond her. The idea of raucous, crowded pubs and clubs curdled her stomach. ‘Get over it,’ she muttered angrily to herself as she turned back to the Tim Golding file.

She reread the statement given by the organic vegetable deliveryman. My, how Harriestown had changed in the few years she’d been gone. The previous occupants of the area would have been interested in organic vegetables only as potential missiles. So engrossed was she that the sharp rap of knuckles on her door jamb made her start. The pages she was holding fluttered to the desk unheeded as Carol pushed back in her chair, heart thudding, eyes wide. This was new, she thought. The old Carol Jordan was a lot harder to startle.

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to creep up on you.’ The woman in the doorway looked more amused than apologetic.

It was Carol’s habit to form descriptions of new encounters as if she were registering their details for the National Criminal Intelligence database. Medium height; wiry as Carol herself. Straight shoulders, full breasts, narrow hips. Wavy brown hair cut in a tousle that had been fashionable a few years before, but which she’d probably hung on to because it suited her incongruously cherubic face. The cast of her features made her look as if she was perpetually on the verge of a smile. Only the eyes gave her away; she had the long flat stare of the cop who’d grown weary of the variety of human viciousness and misery. She wore black jeans, a black silk T-shirt and a leather jacket the colour of crème caramel. Whoever she was, Carol was certain she’d never met her before. ‘I was miles away,’ she said, getting to her feet.

‘And who wouldn’t be, given half a chance.’ The woman’s eyes crinkled in an easy smile as she moved forward, extending a hand. ‘Detective Sergeant Jan Shields. I work Temple Fields.’

‘DCI Jordan,’ Carol said, accepting the warm, dry handshake. She gave a wry smile. ‘You’re the Vice, then?’

Jan groaned. ‘Oh please. One bloody TV series and we’re back with a label from the bad old, sad old days. Yeah, I’m the Vice. That’d be why we get the scuzzy office and you get the management suite. How are you settling in?’

Carol shrugged, slightly uncomfortable with the assumption of camaraderie from an officer junior in rank though probably roughly equal in years. ‘We’re feeling our way. So, Sergeant Shields, is this a social call? Or is there something I can help you with?’

‘I think it might be me that can help you.’ Jan waved a slim manila folder, this smile a tease.

Carol raised her eyebrows, moving back behind her desk. ‘Really?’

‘Your team’s working cold cases till you hit a fresh jackpot, right?’

‘We’re taking a look, yes.’

‘And one of those cases would be Tim Golding?’

‘You’re well informed, Sergeant.’

Jan shrugged. ‘You know how it is. Gossip travels faster than a speeding bullet.’

‘And we’re today’s hot news.’ Carol sat down. She wanted to give the impression of confidence. ‘So what is it you have for me?’

‘It’s a bit of a long story.’ Jan gestured to the chair opposite Carol. ‘May I?’ She sat down and crossed her legs with easy confidence.

Carol leaned forward. ‘Let’s have it, then.’

‘When you were here before, I was on secondment to a Home Office team working with the FBI on a long-term investigation into paedophiles using the internet. You’ve probably heard of Operation Ore?’

Carol nodded. The news media had leapt on Operation Ore with the avidity of a starving coyote in a meat-processing factory. The investigation had netted thousands of potential arrestees on both sides of the Atlantic: men who surfed the net and used their credit cards to buy access to sites where they could download child pornography. But the sheer scale of the results had made Operation Ore a victim of its own success. Overstretched law enforcement agencies looked at the mountain of evidence and threw their hands up in despair. Carol had heard one colleague estimate that with the officers at his disposal it would take nine and a half years simply to interview all the names from his patch, never mind to seize and analyse their hard drives. ‘You were involved in that?’

‘In the early stages, yes. I’ve been back here two years now, and most of what I’ve been doing since then has been prioritizing our hit list, in between the usual shit on the streets. In the last six months, we’ve started pulling in our prime candidates. What we do is kick their doors down and seize their computer equipment. After a preliminary interview we usually release them on police bail till the analysis is done.’

‘Which can take weeks, I imagine?’

Jan’s mouth twisted in a half-smile. ‘If we’re lucky. Anyway, I got a stack of stuff through yesterday from the techies. They’d stripped out a pretty rich seam from a guy we pulled in a couple of months ago.’ She shook her head. ‘You’d think I’d be used to this by now. The guy’s a senior NHS manager. You need a hip replacement or a new knee at Bradfield Cross? He’s the one you blame for the length of the waiting list. Respectable house in the suburbs, wife’s a teacher, two teenage kids. And his computer’s like a fucking sewer. So, I’m wading through his shit and I find this–’ She flipped open her file dramatically and pulled out a print of a digital photograph, blown up to cover most of an A4 sheet. She passed it across to Carol. ‘I recognized the kid from the media blitz.’

Carol studied the photograph. The background showed a dramatic rock formation. Slender birch branches crisscrossed one corner. A skinny child stood naked and hunched in the middle of the frame. Sandy hair, Harry Potter glasses. Features she’d memorized in the course of her long day’s reading. There was no room for doubt: this was Tim Golding. She felt the familiar rush that came with a fresh lead and hated herself for it. This wasn’t something to rejoice over. Carol understood that now better than she ever had before. ‘Are there any more?’ she asked.

Jan shook her head. I’ve been right through the archive. Nothing.’

‘What about the other missing kid–Guy Lefevre?’

‘Sorry. That’s the only one. And it doesn’t mean my guy is the one you’re looking for. These sick bastards swap shots all the time. The fact that there’s only the one pic of the Golding boy would suggest to me that my target wasn’t the photographer.’

I’m inclined to agree with you. But I want to talk to him nevertheless.’ Carol met Jan’s eyes in a long, measured stare. ‘I’d like his file now and I’d like him in an interview room first thing in the morning. Do you want me to clear that with your senior officer?’

‘Sorted already. My guvnor agrees you get first crack. Full house beats a flush.’

‘Thanks, Sergeant. I appreciate it.’ Carol slid the print back towards Jan. This background–any idea where it might be?’ She pointed to the unusual rock formation.

Jan shook her head. ‘Not a clue. I’m a city girl, me. I get the shakes if I’m more than five miles from Starbucks.’

‘It looks pretty distinctive to me. But for all I know, there could be rocks like this from Land’s End to John o’Groats.’

‘Yeah. But there’s only one Tim Golding.’

Carol sighed. ‘Wrong tense, I think.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Looking at this, I think we should be saying there was only one Tim Golding.’

His hands are sweating. They slither and slip in spite of the thin layer of talc inside the latex gloves. It makes the preparation difficult. He’s not really used to anything that requires finer control than rolling a joint. When his fingers fumble and a blade nicks him through the glove, he swears out loud at the beads of blood that ooze from the wound.

He’s glad the Voice isn’t here to see him fucking up. And that reminds him that he has instructions about what to do if his blood gets on the stuff. ‘Put anything stained with even the smallest drop of blood to one side. Replace it and start again. Only one blood, that’s what we want. Only one blood.’ The words echo in his head and he does what he’s told. He pulls a page out of that evening’s paper and places the bloody blade on it. Then he strips off the gloves and adds them to the pile. He doesn’t have an Elastoplast, so he tears off a corner of the newsprint and sticks it clumsily over the place where the blood is seeping. Then he takes another pair of gloves from the box. And starts again.

He really wants to get it right. He knows that if he gets it right, this will be the best thing he’s ever done. He knows because that’s what the Voice told him. And everything else the Voice has said has been right.

All day, he’s been thinking about what’s to come. All day, his mind’s been in a spin. Though he tried to keep it hidden, people noticed. But they don’t expect much of him at the best of times, so they didn’t notice in a way that they’ll remember afterwards. Mostly, they just made a joke of it, although one or two used his slowness or stupidity as an excuse for giving him a bad time. But he’s used to that too. Until the Voice came along and said he deserved better, that was how it was for him. The tree every dog pissed up. The one who was so crap everybody else looked good next to him.

Tonight, he’s going to prove them wrong. Tonight he’s going to do something none of them would dare. And he’s going to do it right.

Isn’t he?

The car park was a place of shadows, hemmed in by high brick walls topped with razor wire. When it had been built, nobody could have anticipated the explosion in car ownership, so it was always over-full, double-parked and a source of irritation to those who had to use it.

It was also supposed to be secure. A sturdy metal barrier had to be raised to permit entry or egress, and the officer in charge of it was supposed to monitor each entrant carefully. But the man leaning on one of the cars understood how to circumvent systems. When he’d been here before, he’d made allies of the security team, aware that there would probably be a time when he’d want to come back without the necessary authority.

That time was tonight. He’d been waiting for the best part of an hour, resting against the bonnet of the silver saloon, reading steadily through the papers he’d stuffed into his briefcase, his peripheral vision alert to anyone leaving the tall building in front of the car park. But the light was fading fast and the air held the crisp promise of winter. Waiting was becoming less attractive. He glanced at his watch. Just after six. He’d give it half an hour, then he’d slip away into the night. He didn’t want to lurk in the darkness, for a variety of reasons.

A few minutes later, he saw what he’d been waiting for. A gleam of blonde hair caught in the security lights by the back door, and he was on the move. He shoved the file back into his briefcase and stood upright, moving towards the back of the car to cut off his target before she could reach the driver’s door.

She looked over her shoulder, calling out a farewell to a colleague. When she turned back, he was only a few feet from her. Shock and astonishment shot across her face and she stopped dead. Her mouth formed an exclamation, but no sound emerged.

‘Hi, Carol,’ Tony said. ‘Fancy a curry?’

‘Jesus,’ she exhaled, her shoulders dropping. ‘You nearly gave me a heart attack. What the hell are you doing here?’

He spread his arms wide, a parody of innocence. ‘Like I said, inviting you out for a curry.’

‘Freaking me out, more like. What are you doing in Bradfield? You’re supposed to be in St Andrews.’ He raised one finger in admonishment. ‘Later. Now, are you going to unlock the car? I’m freezing.’

With an air of bemusement, Carol obediently popped the locks and watched him walk round to the passenger seat. She couldn’t help smiling. There was, she thought, nobody quite like Tony Hill.

Twenty minutes later, they’d found a relatively quiet corner table in a cheap and cheerful Bangladeshi café on the fringes of Temple Fields, the area of the city centre where the gay village sat uneasily alongside the red-light district. Their fellow customers were a mixture of students and individuals poised to go looking for love in all the wrong places. Carol and Tony had discovered the café when they’d first worked together on a case centred on Temple Fields, and it seemed the obvious place for this reunion.

‘I can’t believe you’re here,’ Carol said as the waiter departed to bring them a couple of bottles of Kingfisher.

He held out his arm. ‘Go on, pinch me. I’m real.’

She leaned forward and gave his shoulder a gentle punch. ‘OK, you’re real. But why are you here?’

‘I jacked the job in. I was a fish out of water there, Carol. I needed to get back to the work I know I’m good at. I’d already got an offer of consultancy work over in Europe. And when John Brandon told me you were coming back to Bradfield, I got on to Bradfield Moor and asked for part-time clinical work.’ He grinned. ‘So here I am.’

‘You came back to Bradfield because of me?’ Carol’s expression was guarded. ‘I don’t want your pity, Tony.’

‘It’s nothing to do with pity. You’re the best friend I’ve got. I have some idea of how hard this is for you, Carol. And I want to be around if you need me.’

Carol waited for the waiter to deposit their beers, then said, ‘I can manage, you know. I’ve been a cop for a long time. I’m capable of catching villains without your help.’

Tony took a long drink from the bottle of Indian lager while he considered how to deal with her wilful misunderstanding. ‘I’m not here to help you do your job. I’m here because that’s what friends do.’ He gave a crooked smile. ‘And besides, it suits me to be here. You should see the nutters they’ve got locked up in Bradfield Moor. It’s a dream come true for a weirdo like me.’

Carol snorted, spraying the paper tablecloth with beer. ‘Bastard! You waited till I had a mouthful of beer to make me laugh.’

‘What do you expect? I’m trained to provoke reactions. So, where are you living?’

‘I’m camping in Michael’s spare room while I look for somewhere to rent.’ Carol studied the menu.

Tony pretended to do the same, though he already knew he’d choose the fish pakora followed by the chicken biryani. The lack of commitment implied by Carol’s decision to rent rather than to sell up in London and buy in Bradfield was understandable. She wanted to leave herself an escape route. But it troubled him nevertheless. ‘That must feel strange,’ he said. ‘It having been your flat in the first place.’

‘It’s not ideal. I don’t think Lucy’s crazy about having me there. She’s a barrister, remember? She does a lot of criminal defence work, so she has a tendency to regard me in the same light as a chicken farmer regards a fox.’ The waiter returned and they ordered their meals. As he departed, Carol met Tony’s eyes. ‘What about you? Where are you living?’

‘I was lucky. I sold my cottage in Cellardyke practically overnight. I’ve just bought a place here. Near where I used to live. A Victorian semi. Three bedrooms, two receptions. Nice big rooms, very light.’

‘Sounds good.’

The waiter plonked a plate of poppadums and a tray of relishes in front of them. Tony took the opportunity to busy himself with something other than Carol. ‘Thing is, it’s got a cellar. Pretty much self-contained. Two big rooms, natural light. Toilet and shower. And a little boxroom you could easily turn into a kitchen.’ He looked up, the question in his eyes.

Carol stared at him, clearly unsure if he was saying what she thought. She gave an uncertain laugh. ‘What would I do with a kitchen?’

‘Good point. But it does give you somewhere to put the washing machine.’

‘Are you seriously offering me your cellar?’

‘Why not? It’d solve your accommodation problem. And having a copper on the premises would give me a sense of security.’ He grinned. ‘More importantly, Nelson would keep the mice away.’

Carol fiddled with the lime pickle. ‘I don’t know. Does it have a separate entrance?’

‘Well, of course. I wouldn’t want to compromise your reputation. There’s a door that leads to a flight of steps up to the back garden. And an internal door down from the house, obviously. But it would be a simple enough thing to fit a lock to that.’ He smiled. ‘You could have bolts too, if you wanted.’

‘You’ve been thinking about this, haven’t you?’

Tony shrugged. ‘When I viewed the house, it seemed like a good way of making it work for a living. I didn’t know what your plans were. But the builders started work on it yesterday. And I’d rather have you living there than a stranger. Look, don’t make a decision now. Think about it. Sleep on it. There’s no hurry.’ There was an uncomfortable silence while they both tried to figure out where to take the conversation next. ‘So how was your first day back in harness? What are you working on?’ Tony asked, moving the conversation away from treacherous shoals.

‘Until we get a new major case, we’re taking a look at a bunch of unsolveds.’ Carol looked up as the waiter brought their starters.

‘That must be pretty soul-destroying.’

‘Normally it would be.’ She reached for her aloo chat. ‘But amazingly enough, we actually scored a break this afternoon. Purely by chance, a detective from another squad stumbled across a new lead. I can’t help seeing it as a positive omen.’

‘That’s a great start.’

Carol’s expression was rueful. ‘Yes and no. You remember Don Merrick? He’s the DI on my team. And the trouble is that the break came on one of his cold cases. Which makes him feel pretty sick.’

‘Not Tim Golding?’

Carol tipped her head in acknowledgement. ‘The one he called you in on. Thanks for telling me, Tony,’ she added ironically.

He looked embarrassed. ‘To tell you the truth, I was afraid of muddying the waters while you were considering coming back to Bradfield. I didn’t want to influence your decision one way or the other.’

Carol smiled. ‘Oh, you think your presence in Bradfield would have been such a draw?’

He put down the pakora that was halfway to his lips. ‘The truth, Carol? I was afraid if you knew I was here, it would be the last place on earth you’d want to be.’

Don Merrick stared glumly into his pint of Newcastle Brown Ale, his Labrador eyes sad and brooding. ‘Stop looking on the fucking bright side, Paula,’ he grumbled. ‘Because there isn’t a fucking bright side, all right?’

Paula ran her finger down the condensation on her bottle of Smirnoff Ice. They were the last survivors of the bonding session the team had decided on after DCI Jordan had called it a day. There hadn’t been much of a celebratory atmosphere, truth to tell. Stacey and Sam had excused themselves after the first round, and Kevin had been sucked into a drawn-out game of pool in the pub’s ratty back room. Neither Paula nor Merrick minded. They’d worked together long enough to slip the bonds of rank once they were on their own time. ‘Please yourself, Don.’

‘That photo…I can’t help thinking about what that lad went through before he died. And don’t try to contradict me,’ he continued, holding up a hand to fend Paula off. ‘We both know that the kind of scum who’d do that to a kid wouldn’t leave a witness. Tim Golding’s dead. But he was alive long enough to be taken off somewhere in the middle of nowhere and subjected to Christ knows what. That picture was taken in daylight, which means he was still alive the next morning. And that’s what I’m having trouble with. If I’d done my job, we’d have found him.’

Paula reached across the table and helped herself to one of Merrick’s cigarettes. ‘If you’re getting maudlin, I need a smoke.’

‘Thought you’d stopped.’

‘I have.’ She inhaled deeply. ‘That’s bullshit, what you were just saying. We worked that case into the ground. You’ve got to stop beating yourself up like this, Don. Apart from anything else, we need you not to be fucked up. We’ve already got a fucked-up DCI. The last thing we need is a fucked-up DI as well.’

Merrick looked at her in surprise. ‘You think Carol Jordan’s fucked up?’

‘Of course she is. She was raped, Don. And it happened because a bunch of suits thought so little of her they staked her out like a Judas goat. However you cut it, she’s not playing with a full deck right now. Her judgement’s compromised.’

Merrick shook his head. ‘I don’t know, Paula. She seemed pretty much on her game to me.’

‘It’s easy to talk the talk when there’s no pressure. But I’m not sure she’ll be able to walk the walk any more.’

Merrick looked doubtful. ‘It’s far too soon to be talking like that. Carol Jordan’s the best guvnor I ever worked for.’

‘I thought so once too. But now…?’ Paula swigged the rest of her drink. ‘Let’s see if you’re saying that in six months’ time. So what do you make of the newbies?’

‘Early days.’ Merrick shrugged. ‘That Stacey knows her way round the machines, that’s for sure.’

‘I keep catching myself wondering if she is a machine,’ Paula giggled. ‘She’s not one of the girls, that’s for sure. I keep trying to get her talking, but she’s definitely not one for idle chit-chat.’

Merrick grinned. ‘Yeah, somehow I can’t see her gossiping about men and make-up in the toilets. But she’s quick enough to weigh in when somebody needs a bit of help with the computers.’

‘What about Sam? What’s your take on him?’ Paula asked.

‘Seems all right. He doesn’t have much to say for himself.’

‘I’m not sure about him. There’s something a bit creepy there,’ Paula confided. ‘One of my mates used to work with him over at Downton, and she said he was slimy. Never said much, but never missed a chance to put one over on everybody else. And always incredibly well informed about what everybody else was up to. Apparently, he likes to look good to the bosses, does our Sam.’

‘Well, we all like to make a good impression,’ Merrick said.

‘Yeah, but not necessarily at the expense of our colleagues. Oh, and she said he was never at ease with her or the other women on the squad. She thought he was a bit of a secret sexist.’

Merrick laughed. ‘Paula, these days we’re only allowed to be sexist in secret or else you and the sisters come down on us like a ton of bricks.’

She punched him affectionately on the arm. ‘You know what I mean.’ She contemplated her empty bottle. ‘You ready for another?’

‘I should be getting home,’ Merrick said reluctantly.

Paula got to her feet, grinning. ‘That’ll be another brown ale, then?’

He knows these streets like the inside of his pocket. He’s walked them, worked them since he was a kid. He knows the faces, he knows the places where certain people can be found at particular times of the day and night. He never thought anything of it before, it was just the way the world turned. But the Voice has made him understand that knowledge is power, that what he knows makes him king of the streets.

He shambles along in his usual fashion, trying his very best to look like he would on any other night. He does a bit of business, just to cover himself, just to make it look like any other night. The Voice said he should do that. So that when the questions come, people will place him in the usual haunts, doing the usual things.

But soon it’s time. He knows where to find her. It’s where she always is between punters. He clears his throat and walks up to her. He tells her what he wants. She looks amused, as if she can’t quite believe it’s him asking for it. ‘No discounts for mates, mind,’ she says. He blushes and squirms. It makes him uncomfortable that she calls him a mate. Because what he’s about to do to her is nothing like the things that mates do to each other, no way. But she doesn’t see what’s in his mind. She sees what she expects to see: a punter who feels awkward because he’s a fish out of water.

He tells her he wants to go back to her room. He knew about the room even before the Voice. He knows much more about what goes on round here than anybody gives him credit for. He follows her round the corner into the ginnel where her room is, giving a quick glance over his shoulder. Nobody is paying any attention. Even if they wanted to, it’s too dark round here; the dealers smash the streetlights so often the council’s given up replacing them. And even if they had eyes like a cat, they’d assume it was him working, not getting her to work for him.

Up the stairs she goes, her arse tight in her short skirt. It’s amazing, but he feels himself getting hard at the sight of it. He’s seen these girls a million times before, they’re just part of the landscape, they don’t normally register any more. But tonight, watching Sandie’s gyrating hips, he’s turned on. He remembers dimly what he’s supposed to do at this point and he pulls out the digital camera and snaps her as she goes. The flash makes her stop in her tracks and whirl round. ‘What the fuck are you up to?’ she demands.

He waves the camera at her. ‘I just wanted something to remember you by,’ he says, the rehearsed words tripping out with hardly a stumble.

She frowns for a second, then laughs. ‘That’ll cost you.’

He snaps another shot. ‘I can afford it,’ he says. She carries on upstairs and he follows. At the door, she stops. ‘Let’s see the colour of your money,’ she says. ‘You want to tie me up, you pay upfront.’

He takes out the money the Voice left with his instructions and peels off some notes. Sandie snatches at it and shoves it into her little handbag. ‘Business must be better for you than it is for me,’ she says, her voice bitter as the coffee in Stan’s Café. She opens the door. ‘Come on then, let’s get it over with.’

He smiles. She wouldn’t be saying that if she knew what he’s got for her. But then, if he does what he’s told, she won’t be saying anything again. Ever.

Temple Fields hadn’t changed much in the past couple of years, Carol thought as they walked back to her car. The same litter tumbling along the gutters, the same mixture of self-conscious seekers after what passed for pleasure rubbing awkward shoulders with those who had already found it and lost all inhibitions along the way. Her police officer’s mind clocked them as she passed: the frail-looking rent boys, the bored hookers, the shifty sellers of chemical promises, and the easy marks who moved among them, obvious in their fake confidence. But the woman behind the badge shivered at the traffic in human flesh and folly. She didn’t want to think of the acts that would take place in this square mile before morning. Carol felt as though she’d lost a layer of skin somewhere, and wondered how long it would take to grow back.

‘Same old same old,’ she said wearily. ‘Look at them–they think they’ve made a deal with the world that will keep them safe. They’ve no bloody idea how fragile they are.’

‘They can’t afford to think about it,’ Tony said, his eyes taking in the parade on streets splashed with garish neon from the bars.

They walked on in silence. ‘I’ll give you a lift,’ Carol said as they neared her car.

‘No, you’re all right. I feel like walking.’ Carol raised her eyebrows. Thinking time?’ Tony nodded. ‘I saw someone today and I need to figure out how to keep the promise I made him.’

‘Your latest crusade?’ Carol smiled.

Tony looked surprised. ‘Is that how you see what I do?’

‘I think it’s how you see what you do. A one-man crusade to mend the damage.’

He shrugged. ‘I wish it was that easy. So, you’ll come round tomorrow night to see the house?’

‘I will. Then maybe I can decide if I want to be the mad woman in the cellar. Shall I bring pizza?’

He considered. ‘Chinese,’ he said finally.

‘OK.’ She reached for the driver’s door. ‘Tony–thanks for tonight. And for being here in Bradfield.’

He looked surprised. Why would I be anywhere else? Everything I need is here. Instead of speaking his thoughts aloud, he patted her awkwardly on the shoulder. ‘See you tomorrow.’

She climbed into her car and drove off, conscious of him in her mirrors, standing on the pavement, watching her out of sight. She knew it was guilt that had brought him there. Once, that would have made her uncomfortable and angry. But she was a different woman now and that woman had learned to be grateful for good things, however complicated the package they arrived in.

Sam Evans edged the office door open cautiously. No lights inside. He slipped through the narrow gap and closed the door behind him, turning the lock. Then he flicked the light switches on. The fluorescent strips flickered then settled their hard glare over the Major Incident Team’s squadroom. Sam surveyed the array of desks and made straight for Paula McIntyre’s.

He sat in her chair and noted the position of the piled paper on the desktop. The case she was working on would come to him next. Carefully, he riffled through each stack, trying to figure out the reason for the alignment she’d chosen. He flicked open the notepad and read down the list of points Paula had made. Some of them were pretty perspicacious, he thought, storing them away in his mind for when he came to review that case.

He inched open Paula’s desk drawers one by one, stirring the contents with a pencil, leaving no prints to indicate he’d been there. It was always useful to see what people kept out of sight but close at hand. Tucked right at the bottom of the drawer, he found a photograph of Don Merrick with his arm round a woman in what looked like a pub or a club. On closer inspection, he realized with a jolt of surprise that the woman was Carol Jordan. Her hair was longer, her face fuller, but it was undoubtedly her. They were both toasting the photographer with what looked like glasses of champagne. Very interesting, he thought. And almost certainly useful.

He closed Paula’s drawer and moved on to Kevin Matthews’ desk, where he repeated the same process. People said you should know your enemies. But Sam Evans also believed in making damn sure he knew the people who were supposed to be on the same side. He was, as John Brandon had spotted, ambitious. But he didn’t just want to excel; he wanted to make sure nobody outshone him. Ever.

Knowledge was power. And Evans knew that nobody ever handed out power as a gift. You had to grab it whenever and wherever you could. If that meant stealing it from someone else, so be it. If they were too weak to hold on to it, they didn’t deserve it.

He did.

He checks the image in front of him against the one planted there by the Voice and the videos. Sandie’s spreadeagled on the bed, her wrists handcuffed to the cheap pine frame. Her feet are tied to the legs. He had to use rope for them because the ankle cuffs wouldn’t stretch that far. It’s not right, but it’s the best he can do. He’s grateful to the Voice again for reminding him to take rope as well as the cuffs in case the bed wasn’t right.

He wishes the room was nicer, but there’s nothing he can do about that. At least the lights are dim. It’s easy to ignore the needle tracks on her arms and the fact that she’s too skinny. She could almost be the dream girl from one of the videos, the trimmed triangle of hair hiding the secrets he’s about to possess.

He turns away from her and snaps the latex gloves over his hands. ‘Come on,’ she says. ‘What are you waiting for? I haven’t got all night.’

Only he knows how true that is. He reaches into his backpack and takes out the padded leather gag. He turns back to face her and now she’s starting to look worried. He moves towards her and she starts to shout. ‘Wait a fucking minute! You never said nothing about that…’ But her words are lost as he rams the gag home, jerking her head forward to fasten it behind. Her eyes are bulging now as she struggles to scream. But all that can be heard is the faintest of grunts.

He remembers to wipe the handcuffs clear of any fingerprints, then he grabs the video camera and sets it up on its little tripod, checking that he can see the whole bed. Next, the laptop and the webcam. Sandie pushes against her restraints, but there’s no point.

He takes out a bundle wrapped in a thick wad of kitchen towel. He steps into shot and slowly unwraps it. When Sandie sees what he’s holding, the veins in her neck stand out. The air fills with the smell of piss. He smiles sweetly. He’s hard now, harder than the videos ever got him. But he mustn’t lose control. He needs to make the Voice proud of him, and that means no evidence.

He takes a deep breath, trying to steady his pounding heart. He’s sweating, he can feel it running down his neck and soaking his T-shirt. He grips his weapon tightly. The razor blades glint sharp and savage in the lamplight. ‘I hope you’re ready for me, Sandie,’ he says softly, just like the Voice told him to.

Then he begins.

Carol stared through the two-way mirror at the man in the interview room. Ronald Edmund Alexander looked nothing like the popular image of a paedophile. He wasn’t shifty or sweaty. He wasn’t dirty or sleazy. He looked exactly like a middle manager who lived in the suburbs with a wife and two children. There was no dirty raincoat, just an off-the-peg suit, an unassuming charcoal grey. Pale blue shirt, burgundy tie with a thin grey stripe. Neat haircut, no vain attempt to hide the way he was thinning on top. He’d been complaining bitterly when the two uniformed officers had brought him in. They had no right, he insisted, no right at all to come marching into his office at Bradfield Cross as if he was some common criminal. He’d co-operated, hadn’t he? All they had to do was pick up a phone and he’d have been straight over. There was no need, no need at all to embarrass him at his place of work.

Carol had watched from across the custody suite, trying to work out if she disliked him more because of what she knew he held on his computer or because he exemplified every petty bureaucrat who had ever driven her to thoughts of violence. She’d wanted to get straight into him, but had been frustrated by the tardiness of his solicitor.

So they’d stuck him in a cell while they waited for his brief to arrive. He’d been remarkably calm, she thought, wondering what Tony would have made of Alexander’s demeanour. He’d taken a look round then calmly sat on the bunk, legs apart, arms folded across his chest, gazing into the middle distance. Zen and the art of façade maintenance, she thought wryly.

Finally, the door to the observation room opened. Paula stuck her head round the door. ‘Showtime, chief. His brief’s here.’

‘Who is it?’ Carol asked, dragging her eyes away from Alexander.

‘Bronwen Scott.’

Carol remembered the defence lawyer from her previous spell in Bradfield. Unlike most legal aid lawyers, Scott seemed to have the wherewithal to dress in Dolce & Gabbana, with matching shoes and handbags from Prada. Her perfectly groomed shoulder-length black hair and flawlessly painted nails always made Carol feel like she’d been dragged straight out of bed into their interviews. It would have been almost bearable if the lawyer hadn’t been as sharp and combative as she was expensively immaculate. The general view was that if you could afford Bronwen Scott, you’d probably done it. ‘Oh good,’ Carol said, heading for the door.

She came face to face with Scott as she emerged into the corridor. ‘Inspector Jordan. What a surprise. I thought you’d left us for pastures more glamorous,’ Scott said, her voice cool and amused.

‘It’s Chief Inspector, actually. And you should know better than anyone that there’s nothing glamorous about what we deal in. Shall we go?’

Scott shook her head. ‘I don’t know where you’ve been hiding, Chief Inspector, but up here in Bradfield we still allow lawyers to talk to their clients in private. And before I do that, I’d like some disclosure.’

Nothing unexpected there, Carol thought. ‘When your client was arrested, his computer equipment was confiscated. It has subsequently been analysed. He will be interviewed fully about that at a later date, but there is one image on his machine that links directly to a major inquiry which I am leading. It is that single image I want to talk to him about.’

‘That image being…?’

‘I’ll be happy to discuss that in the interview. And to show you and your client a copy.’

Scott shook her head. ‘You really have forgotten your manners, haven’t you, Chief Inspector? Before I can have a meaningful conversation with my client, I need to know what we’re talking about here.’

There was a long silence. Carol could feel Paula’s eyes on her back, measuring her. There really wasn’t anything to be gained by holding back at this point. It wasn’t as if Ron Alexander was a serious suspect in the disappearance of Tim Golding. If she refused to give Scott anything, then she’d end up with a ‘no comment’ interview, nothing surer. If she tried waiting until the interview to spring the photo on him, Scott would simply demand time out to talk to her client. Carol considered. She wanted co-operation. She didn’t care what that might or might not do to any wider case against Ron Alexander. ‘We might as well speed things up,’ she said. ‘Your client’s computer held an image of Tim Golding. The eight-year-old–’

‘Yes, I know who Tim Golding is,’ Scott said impatiently. ‘But since you people disseminated images of the child all over the country, it’s hardly a big deal that my client has a photo of the boy on his computer.’

‘It’s a big deal when the picture in question shows a terrified, naked child.’ Carol turned on her heel and walked off. ‘Let me know when you’re ready to talk,’ she said over her shoulder as she rounded a corner, Paula hard on her heels. ‘I see Bronwen Scott hasn’t mellowed with age,’ she commented.

‘It’s a pain you had to give away so much,’ Paula said, falling into step beside her boss.

‘You know the rules, Paula. They ask for disclosure, we have to give it.’

‘Couldn’t you have held back on the ID, chief? Then hit him with it in the interview?’

Carol stopped and gave Paula a speculative look. ‘You think I was weak back there, don’t you?’

Paula looked horrified. ‘I never…’

‘Giving in isn’t always a sign of weakness, Paula. There was no point in holding out. I know how Scott works. Alexander would just have gone “no comment” from the off. This way, she might just see it as a bargaining chip.’ Carol walked off, feeling the tension in her shoulders. Maybe they didn’t trust her quite as much as she’d thought.

He sleeps late. It’s nearly noon when he wakes, and even then he has to force his eyes open. He feels like somebody spiked his brain with Valium. His head’s muzzy, it takes him a moment to realize where he is. At home, in his own bed, curled into himself like a baby. But it’s a different person inside his body this morning.

He’s not the fuck-up that everybody laughs at any more. He did it. He did exactly what he was supposed to. Just like the Voice told him to. And he’s got his reward. He’s got the money, even though he explained that wasn’t why he’d done it. He’d done it because he understood. It’s not the money that makes him feel like he finally made it. It’s hearing the Voice say good things about him. It’s knowing that he’s done something hardly anybody else could do. Something special.

Thank God he managed to hide the way he really felt when he reached the moment itself. He’d been excited, aroused, on the point of coming inside his pants like a teenager. But when it came to it, when he had to stick that thing inside her again and again, he wilted. It wasn’t sexy. It was bloody and terrible and frightening. He knows it was the right thing to do, but at the very end, it wasn’t exciting at all. Just messy and sad.

But the Voice didn’t see that. The Voice just saw that he’d done what he was supposed to do, and he’d got it right.

As he wakes up properly, he feels a buzz in his veins. It’s pride, but it’s fear too. They’re going to be looking for him. The Voice promised he’d be all right. But maybe the Voice has got it wrong.

Maybe he wasn’t as clever as he thought.

Tom Storey stared out of the window, watching the leaves detaching from the trees and swirling in the brisk breeze that had sprung up towards noon. He sat motionless, his bandaged stump gripped in his other hand. Tony watched him for a good ten minutes, but Storey never budged.

Eventually, he walked across the day room and pulled up a chair next to Storey. He noted the purple bruise along his cheekbone. According to the orderly who had shown Tony in, one of the other patients had punched Storey during a group therapy session. ‘Even these mad bastards draw the line at child killers,’ the man had said casually.

‘We’ve all got two personalities, you know,’ Tony said conversationally. ‘One in each hemisphere of the brain. One’s the boss, it shouts down the weaker one. But you sever the diplomatic links, and there’s no telling what the subservient one will do once it gets the taste for power.’

Storey still didn’t move. ‘I can still feel it,’ he said. ‘It’s like a malevolent ghost. It won’t leave me alone. Supposing you find out I’ve got a brain tumour. And supposing that doesn’t kill me. There’s still going to be a war going on in my head, isn’t there?’

‘I won’t lie to you, Tom,’ Tony said. ‘There’s no quick fix here. See, you’ve got the dominant left side of the brain. That’s in charge of the three R’s–reading, writing and arithmetic. And you’ve got the right side. It’s illiterate, but it comprehends form, solid geometry, music. I suspect it gets frustrated because it can’t express itself readily in the ways that humans generally communicate. That’s why it goes off the rails when the left side loosens its grip. But that’s not the end of the story.’

‘Just the end of Tom Storey.’ His voice was bitter.

‘Not necessarily. The brain’s an amazing structure. When it gets damaged, it retrains other areas to take over the jobs that used to be done by the bit that’s redundant. And there are things we can do to retrain the rebellious part of your brain. I can help you, Tom.’

Storey took a breath so deep it raised his shoulders. ‘Can’t bring my kids back, though. Can you?’

Tony looked out of the window at the flurry of golden and scarlet leaves. ‘No, I can’t. But what I can do is help you live with that absence.’

Tears spilled out of Storey’s eyes and trickled unheeded down his cheeks. ‘Why would you want to do that?’

Because it’s the only thing I’m good at, Tony thought. What he said was: ‘Because you deserve it, Tom. Because you deserve it.’

Carol walked into the interview room with an assumption of confidence she didn’t really feel. It had been many months since she’d interviewed anyone, witness or suspect, and she was afraid of her emotions bleeding into the professional sphere. It didn’t help that she was conscious of Paula at her side, weighing her up. At least Ron Alexander’s composure seemed to have slipped a little. He was refusing to meet her eyes, fiddling continuously with his wedding ring.

‘Right,’ Carol said, settling into her chair. ‘I’m Detective Chief Inspector Jordan and this is Detective Constable McIntyre. As your solicitor will have explained, Mr Alexander, we’re looking for your help in respect of another inquiry that’s not related to the reasons you were originally arrested. We would appreciate your co-operation.’

‘Why should I talk to you?’ Alexander blurted out. ‘You’ll only twist anything I say to make a case against me.’

Bronwen Scott put a hand on his arm. ‘You don’t have to say anything, Ron.’ She looked directly at Carol. ‘My client is concerned that any co-operation he offers you will be reflected in any subsequent proceedings.’

Carol shook her head. ‘You know it’s not up to us, Ms Scott. It’s the CPS who make the deals. But I’m perfectly willing to make representations to them at the appropriate time.’

‘That’s not good enough.’

Carol shrugged. ‘It’s the best I can do. Your client might like to consider the converse, however. If he fails to help us in such a sensitive case, nobody’s going to cut him any slack anywhere down the line.’

‘Is that a threat, Chief Inspector?’

‘Just a statement of fact, Ms Scott. You know as well as I how emotions run high in the case of a missing child. Sex offenders have a hard enough time in prison without adding to their problems. It’s up to you, Mr Alexander.’ Carol eyed Alexander, who was shifting uncomfortably in his chair. She opened the folder in front of her and took out the photograph Jan Shields had supplied. She placed it in front of him. ‘We found this on your computer. Do you recognize this child, Mr Alexander?’

He glanced at the image then looked away, desperately scanning the wall as if it would give him the answer. ‘Yes,’ he said, his voice barely above a whisper.

‘Can you tell me who it is?’

‘His name’s Tim Golding.’ He picked up Scott’s pen, gripping it in both hands as if trying to snap it in two. ‘His picture was in the papers. And on the TV.’

‘When did you acquire this photograph?’ Carol leaned forward slightly, forcing warmth and intimacy into her voice.

He flashed a look at Scott, who nodded. ‘I don’t know exactly. A few weeks ago, I think. It came in an email attachment. I was shocked when I opened it.’

‘Shocked because you recognized Tim Golding?’

He nodded. ‘Yes. And because of…because of how he looked.’

‘What? You’re not used to receiving pictures of naked, frightened children?’

‘Don’t answer that, Ron,’ Scott said quickly. ‘Chief Inspector, if we’re going to make any progress here, I must insist you stop asking questions whose answers might tend to incriminate my client.’

Yeah, right. Carol took a deep breath. She slid another photograph from her folder. ‘Do you recognize this boy?’

Alexander frowned. ‘Isn’t he the one who went missing last year? Guy something or other?’

‘Guy Lefrevre,’ Carol said. ‘Have you ever been sent photographs of Guy Lefevre?’

‘No.’ Alexander’s eyes flicked from side to side. Carol couldn’t decide whether he was panicking or lying. But with Bronwen Scott patrolling her every question, there was nothing to be gained by pressing the point.

‘What did you do when you recognized Tim Golding?’ she asked.

‘I erased the picture right away,’ he said. ‘I didn’t want it on my machine.’

Carol stripped her voice of challenge and tried to sound sympathetic. ‘You didn’t think about contacting the police? You could have printed it out and sent it to us anonymously. You’ve got children of your own, haven’t you, Ron? How do you think you’d feel if one of them went missing? Wouldn’t you want to believe that anyone who had information that might help the inquiry would pass it on to the police?’

A sheen of sweat appeared on his forehead. ‘I suppose,’ he said.

‘It’s not too late to put that right,’ Carol said. ‘Who sent you the photograph, Ron?’

He breathed out noisily. ‘I don’t know. People don’t use their real names on email, you know?’

Carol knew. They used nicknames and mixtures of letters and numbers even when they had nothing to hide. Her own personal email address was a combination of her surname and the last four digits of a previous phone number because, when she’d signed up, ‘caroljordan’ had already been taken. ‘OK. You didn’t know the identity of the sender. So what was his email address?’

He spread his hands. ‘I don’t know. I didn’t pay attention. I just wiped the whole thing. The email and the attachment.’

‘Presumably it was someone who had sent you things before?’

‘I’d advise you not to answer that, Ron.’ Scott laid a hand on his arm again.

Carol glared at the lawyer. ‘You seem to be losing sight of what’s at stake here, Ms Scott. A child is missing. We both know the chances are he’s dead. I’m trying to find out what happened to him, and that’s all I care about.’

‘Very commendable, Chief Inspector. But my concern is my client’s best interests. And I will not sit quietly by while you draw him into potentially incriminating statements.’

Carol gathered herself together and turned her attention back to Alexander. ‘Ron, can you remember anything that might lead us to the person who sent you this picture?’

He shook his head. ‘Honestly, if I knew anything useful, I’d tell you. I want to help, I really do.’

‘OK. Let’s try a different tack. Why do you think he sent it to you? Why would he have thought this was the kind of thing you might like to see?’

‘I don’t think…’ Scott began.

‘It’s all right,’ Alexander said. ‘I don’t know the answer to that either. Everybody gets unsolicited email. Spam blockers don’t get rid of it all.’ He sat back in his seat, clearly more relaxed now he’d figured out how to play the game.

Carol felt irritation rising. ‘Fine. If that’s how you want to play it, Mr Alexander, that’s the way we’ll go.’ She pushed her chair back. ‘This interview is over. But I should tell you that we’re going to be trawling every byte on your hard disk. We’re going to follow your footsteps round the web. You may think you’ve cleaned up your computer, but our technicians are going to demonstrate just how misguided you are. You’ve had your chance, Mr Alexander. And you just blew it.’

Carol marched out of the interview room and headed back to her office, not even bothering to check if Paula was following her. ‘Stacey? My office, now,’ she said as she crossed the squadroom. Paula and Stacey arrived together. ‘What did we get from the techies on Ron Alexander’s computer?’ Carol asked Stacey, waving a hand to indicate they should sit down.

‘Not as much as they’d hoped for,’ Stacey said. ‘People are so dim about this stuff. Alexander thought he’d erased everything from his hard disk. He probably panicked when he saw the earlier newspaper reports about Operation Ore. But like most people, he thought if he just deleted them then emptied the Recycle Bin, they were gone for good. And like most people, he never bothered to reformat or even defrag–’

‘Defrag?’ Paula asked faintly. Stacey rolled her eyes. ‘It’s when you–’ ‘Never mind,’ Carol said. ‘So there was still stuff lurking there?’

‘Well, yes, of course there was. File fragments, some complete files. Like the photo of Tim Golding.’

‘And can we find out where that came from?’

Stacey shook her head. ‘Not a trace. It’s an orphan.’

Paula opened her mouth but before she could speak, Carol said hastily, ‘Never mind, Paula, we get the idea. That’s a blow, Stacey.’ She rubbed the bridge of her nose between her fingers. The lead that had seemed so promising the day before was turning into another dead end. ‘What about his email service provider? Any chance they could help?’

Stacey shrugged. ‘Depends when he got the email. They’re not really techies, ISPs, just bean counters,’ she said disparagingly. ‘They’re only interested in billing, not in keeping records of traffic. Most only keep detailed records for a week. Some for a month. If he got that attachment more than a month ago, we’ve got no chance. And we’d need a court order before they’d hand over the information anyway.’

‘So we’re screwed.’ Carol’s flat statement hung in the air.

Stacey pushed her hair behind her ear. Her self-satisfied smile and her dark almond-shaped eyes made her resemble a cat. ‘Not necessarily. Images like this, there’s more to them than meets the eye. Literally. You sometimes get other information encoded in them.’

Carol perked up. ‘Like the sender’s details?’

Stacey’s sigh fell just short of obvious exasperation. ‘Nothing that straightforward. You might get the serial number of the camera that took the picture. Or the registration number of the software the photographer used to process the image electronically. Then it’s a matter of contacting the manufacturer or the software licence holder and seeing what information they can provide.’

‘That’s scary,’ Paula said.

‘It’s bloody good news,’ Carol corrected her. ‘So what are we waiting for?’

Stacey stood up. ‘It’s going to take time,’ she warned.

‘Doesn’t everything?’ Carol leaned back in her chair. ‘Anything you need, Stacey, just let me know. Paula, find out who Ron Alexander’s ISP is and see what they can tell us. It’s time we brought Tim Golding home.’

The doorbell came as a welcome relief. Tony pushed aside the philosophical text on the mind/body problem that had been stretching his brain and hurried down the hall. He opened the door to find Carol leaning against the porch, a bulging plastic carrier in one hand. ‘You ordered a takeaway?’ she said.

‘You took your time. It’s at least twenty-two hours since I placed my order,’ he said, stepping back and following her down the hall. ‘The kitchen’s straight ahead.’

Carol looked around, taking in the pine units and the tiled breakfast bar. ‘Very eighties,’ she said.

‘Is it? You think that’s part of the reason I got it so cheap?’

She smiled. ‘Could be. It looks in good nick, though.’

‘All the drawers work, which is a definite improvement on anywhere I’ve ever lived before. Now, do you want to eat first or tour the cellar?’

‘What I’d really like is a glass of wine. It’s been a frustrating day.’

‘OK. Wine we can do.’ He reached for an opened bottle of Australian Shiraz Cabernet and poured them each a glass. ‘Here’s to…I don’t know, what should we drink to?’

‘An end to frustrations? For both of us?’

Tony raised his glass and chinked it against hers. ‘That’s as good as anything. An end to frustrations.’ He watched her drink, noting the dark shadows under her eyes and the wariness in her body language. She was, he thought, a long way from herself. ‘So, would you like to see the cellar–sorry, basement flat?’

Carol smiled. ‘Why not?’

She followed him back into the hall. He opened a door that looked as if it should be the cupboard under the stairs. Instead, it gave on to a narrow, steep flight of steps illuminated by a bare lightbulb. Tony led the way into a surprisingly high-ceilinged space. ‘This would be the living room,’ he said, ushering her into a large room that had two shallow but wide windows set high in the walls. ‘It gets a fair bit of natural light. And we could put glass panels in the outside door and build a little porch at the bottom of the steps for security,’ he added eagerly. ‘I already suggested that to the builder. I know it’s hard to imagine now, with the walls still being bare brick, but all this will be plaster-boarded. Wood floors. It’ll look really nice.’

It was a good size. Plenty of room for all she would need, Carol thought. The bedroom was almost as big as the living room, with a surprisingly large bay window. Carol looked around, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. ‘It’s not bad, you know. I can imagine waking up here.’

Tony looked at the floor, suddenly embarrassed. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Think about it.’

On the way back upstairs, he showed her the recently installed toilet and shower room. White tiled walls gleamed bright under their ceiling spotlights. Clean, fresh, untainted. New, she thought with a surge of excitement. A place without ghosts. ‘I don’t need to think about it,’ Carol said. ‘When’s it going to be ready?’

Tony grinned like a small boy. ‘The builder reckons three weeks. Can you stand it at Michael’s till then?’

Carol leaned against his breakfast bar. ‘I can stand anything if I know it’s going to end. You think you can stand having me as your downstairs neighbour?’

‘Only if you promise always to have milk.’ He pulled a wry face. ‘I’m very good at running out of it.’

Carol smiled. ‘I’ll stock up on UHT.’

Waiting is never easy. Especially when he knows exactly what he’s waiting for. By the time he got out on the street today, he was expecting cops everywhere, police tape cordoning off the ginnel where Sandie worked. He was expecting huddles of people on street corners, muttering about murder and mutilation. He was expecting uniformed officers with clipboards asking people where they were and what they were doing last night.

He remembers what it was like last time. The whole of Temple Fields felt like it had overdosed on whiz. Everybody talking nineteen to the dozen like speed freaks, even the miserable gits who never normally had the time of day for him or anybody else. Until the bizzies walked in. Then silence fell like somebody dropped a blanket over everybody’s head.

That’s what he expected this time. But when he went into Stan’s Café and ordered his usual bacon butty and mug of tea, it was just like any other day. A few of the working girls clustered round greasy tables, taking the weight off their feet for half an hour. A couple of kids from the rent rack cuddling cups of coffee. Various eyes clocking him, wondering if he was carrying any gear. Looking away in disappointment when he gave them a slight shake of the head. He’d get hassle off Big Jimmy when he showed up to collect today’s stock. He’d bollock him for being late. He’d hoped the excitement on the street would give him an excuse, but there isn’t any.

So he finished his breakfast and moseyed on round to Big Jimmy’s flat for some stuff to sell. Luckily, the big man wasn’t in and he only had to deal with that fuckwit scaghead Drum who’s too far out of the world to care what anybody else is doing. Within the half-hour he was back on the pitch, doing the business, hoping nobody wondered where he’d been all morning. Hell, most of them had probably still been out cold themselves.

But now it’s evening, and still nothing’s stirring on the streets. It makes him uneasy. Part of him begins to wonder if he dreamed the whole thing. He almost wants to walk round to Sandie’s pitch to see if she’s standing on her usual corner, acting as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

He wishes the Voice was here right now to tell him what’s going on. But since he delivered, he’s heard nothing. He begins to wonder if he’s been abandoned, if all the promises were a dream too.

It wouldn’t be the first time.

Tony raised his glass and reached across the debris of the Chinese. ‘Here’s to one of our rare non-Catholic meals.’ They chinked glasses.

‘Non-Catholic meals?’ Carol frowned.

‘Mostly, when we eat together, it’s in the middle of a case.’ He picked up a piece of pancake. ‘Here is my body which I sacrificed for you.’ He ate the pancake, then raised his glass again in mock-ceremony. ‘Here is my blood which I shed for you.’

Carol nodded, getting it. ‘Only, in our case, the confession comes after the communion.’

‘Only if we’re right.’

She pulled a rueful face. ‘Right, and lucky.’ She took his glass from him and sipped from the opposite side. She felt a crackle of electricity in the curiously intense moment. Before she could hand back the glass, the intimacy was shattered by the insistent ring of her mobile. ‘Damn,’ she said, scrabbling for her bag.

‘Speaking of lucky…’ Tony muttered.

‘DCI Jordan,’ Carol said.

Don Merrick’s familiar voice sounded in her ear. ‘We’ve got a body. I think you’ll want to see this one.’

Carol stifled a sigh. ‘Fine. You’ll have to send a car for me, I’ve had a couple of glasses of wine.’ Tony stood up and started shovelling the tinfoil containers into their plastic bag.

‘No problem, ma’am. You at your flat?’

‘Actually, no, Don. I’m at Dr Hill’s house.’ She caught Tony’s glance and raised her eyes heavenwards as she gave Merrick the address. She was aware of muffled conversation at the other end of the phone. Then Merrick came back on.

‘I’ve asked a car to pick you up there.’

‘I’ll see you shortly, Don,’ Carol said, ending the call. She drained her glass of wine and said, ‘Seems we’ve got a body.’ She got to her feet. ‘I didn’t exactly mean the evening to end like this.’

Tony picked up the dirty plates. ‘Well, it’s probably best to stick to what we know we’re good at.’

Temple Fields’ tawdry glitter was blurred by the slant of autumn rain. The car tyres hissed on the block paving of the pedestrianized zone at the heart of the area. The driver turned into a narrow side street. Redbrick and seedy, it harboured shop fronts with little allure and small entrepreneurial businesses with bedsits on the floors above. Halfway down, access was blocked by a pair of parked police cars. Vague figures hurried beyond the cars, heads down against the weather. As the car pulled up, Carol lowered her head, took a deep breath and climbed out.

Approaching the squad cars, Carol saw that the entrance to a smaller ginnel was closed off by crime-scene tape. Her stomach lurched in anticipation of what she was about to be confronted with. Please God, let it not be sexual. She ducked under the tape, giving her name and rank to the officer logging access to the scene, and spotted Paula standing at a grubby door leading to a stairwell. Seeing Carol, she broke off her conversation with a uniformed officer and turned to her.

‘It’s upstairs, chief. Not a pretty sight.’

‘Thanks, Paula.’ Carol paused on the threshold, snapping a pair of latex gloves over her hands. ‘Who found the body?’

‘One of the street girls. Dee. She and the dead girl used to share the room. Somewhere to take punters.’

‘Was Dee with a punter, then?’

Paula gave a grim little smile. ‘According to Dee, as soon as he realized there was something wrong, he was out of there like a rat off a sinking ship.’

‘Where’s Dee now?’

‘On her way back to the nick to make a statement. With Sam.’

Carol nodded in satisfaction. ‘Thanks, Paula.’ She edged past a fingerprint technician lifting prints from the narrow banister and headed up. At the top of the steep, uncarpeted stairs, an open door cast an oblong of pale light on to the landing. The air was thick with the coppery smell of blood and the darker, deeper stink of human excrement. Though she’d been steeling herself against it, Carol felt herself slide into flashback and almost lost her footing. But the sight of the SOCOs coolly going about their business anchored her back in the present, banishing the kaleidoscope of images that threatened to overwhelm her. Further up and further in.

As she reached the doorway, Carol was conscious of Merrick and Kevin turning to look at her. At first, she concentrated on the external details, working up gradually to deal with what lay at the heart of the room. It was a spartan space, shoddy and cheaply decorated with old stained woodchip emulsioned in what had once been magnolia. A pine bedstead, a couple of armchairs that looked like they were rescued from the tip, a sink, a card table and not much else. Nothing to distract her from the body on the bed.

The woman was tied down, her legs and arms spread in a hideous parody of ecstasy. Her blue eyes stared blankly at the ceiling. It wasn’t hard to read panic and pain there. Her short bleached blonde hair was plastered to her head; the sweat of fear had soaked it and time had dried it into a stiff helmet. She was still dressed, her skirt a blood-soaked ruck around her hips. A sea of gore engulfed her lower body and soaked the thin, sagging mattress. Carol cleared her throat and moved closer. That’s a hell of a lot of blood,’ she said.

‘According to the police surgeon, she pretty much bled out,’ Merrick said. ‘He reckons it took her a while to die.’

Carol struggled with the emotions tormenting her and tried to remember how to do her job. ‘He’s been and gone already?’

‘Yeah, so happened he was at a dinner at the Queensbury. We’d hardly got here ourselves.’

‘So, what have we got?’ she asked.

Merrick consulted his notebook. ‘Sandie Foster, twenty-five, prostitute, convictions for soliciting and possession. But before we get into that…ma’am, this is the identical MO to a series of four murders that happened two years ago, not long after you left us.’

‘Were all the victims clothed, like this?’

‘Like I said, it’s identical.’

‘Well, maybe this time we can solve them.’

Merrick and Kevin exchanged a glance. Kevin looked faintly apologetic. ‘That’s the thing, guv. We already did.’

‘What?’ Carol said.

Merrick shoved his gloved hands into his pockets. ‘Kevin and I worked the case. Derek Tyler–he pleaded guilty. He’s in a secure hospital.’

‘Could we have got the wrong man?’

Merrick shook his head, his lower lip jutting in stubborn denial. ‘No room for doubt. The forensics nailed him. DNA, fingerprints, the lot. Derek Tyler. He pleaded guilty. He even made a confession of sorts, claiming the voices in his head told him to do it. And as soon as Tyler was arrested, the killings stopped. Even more proof, as if we needed it. They locked him up in Bradfield Moor and he refused to say another word about the murders.’

‘Can we check if Tyler has been released?’ Carol asked.

‘I already have. I just came off the phone. Tyler is tucked up in bed, sleeping far better than he has any right to, so it’s not him.’

‘Perhaps we missed something last time.’

The forensics nailed him,’ Merrick insisted.

‘Maybe we should talk to Dr Hill,’ Kevin said. ‘Making sense of things is his line, isn’t it?’

‘Good idea, Kevin,’ Carol said. Tony was always complaining he was never called in early enough on complex murder inquiries. She stepped outside the room and dialled Brandon’s mobile. When he answered, she briefly outlined the circumstances. ‘On the face of it, it looks impossible,’ she said. ‘I’d like to bring Dr Hill in for a consultation.’

‘Isn’t it a little early for that?’ Brandon asked.

‘Normally I’d agree with you, sir, but if there’s any possibility we’re looking at a copycat, I think he could give us a quick answer. Like he did the first time we all worked together.’ Carol held her breath while Brandon considered.

‘All right, go ahead. We’ll talk more fully in the morning.’

As the call ended, Carol stepped to one side to allow the mortuary staff access to the crime scene. ‘Does Dr Vernon know about this?’ she asked.

The one bringing up the rear nodded. ‘Yeah, he wants to cut and shut early tomorrow, he’s got some conference or other to go to. He said to tell you he’ll be ready to roll at seven.’

Merrick and Kevin joined her on the landing, to allow the technicians room to manoeuvre the dead woman into the body bag. ‘Kevin, Sam’s interviewing the woman who found the body. I want you to come back to the station with me and sit in with him. You worked the case before, there might be something you pick up on that Sam wouldn’t know about. Don, you and Paula start organizing door-to-door inquiries. We need to talk to all the street girls and rent boys we can get our hands on, as well as bar staff, punters and the like. Find out where Sandie Foster worked. Somebody must have seen her with her killer.’ She stripped off her gloves and shoved her hands in her pockets, unconsciously hunching her shoulders. ‘And let’s all keep an open mind for now.’

Kevin found Sam Evans slouched against the wall outside one of the interview rooms. ‘How’s it going?’ he asked.

‘Am I glad to see you,’ Evans groaned. ‘That woman in there most definitely does not like people of colour. How come we say one word out of place and we get hit with a complaint of racism, but she gets to call me a jungle bunny?’

Kevin winced. ‘You want me to take a crack at her?’

‘Be my guest.’ Evans waved a hand at the door. ‘I can’t get a single word out of her. I’m going for a smoke.’

He handed Kevin a folder and walked off. Kevin opened it and saw a single sheet of paper that told him nothing more than name, age and address. ‘You weren’t joking, were you, Sam?’ he said softly.

Kevin looked through the spyhole in the door to see a bleached-blonde woman in a short, tight, black dress. The notes said she was twenty-nine but, from this distance, she looked closer to nineteen. She was pulling her skimpy jacket close to her as if the room was chill. She was smoking, and judging by the thickness of the air, it wasn’t her first cigarette. So much for Brandon’s non-smoking policy. Kevin remembered the first day he’d tried to enforce it. The suspect he’d been interviewing had threatened him with a complaint under the human rights legislation for cruel and unusual punishment. He wasn’t going to be telling Dee Smart to put her fag out. She was the nearest they had to a useful witness so far, and this case was far too important to take chances with.

He walked in and treated her to his best sympathetic smile. Thank fuck,’ she said. ‘A human being.’

‘You have a problem with my colleague?’ Kevin said, a sympathetic smile on his face.

‘He gives me the creeps,’ she muttered. ‘He’s got that Ali G chip on his shoulder. “Is it because I is black?” No, mate, it’s because you is an arsehole. Somebody should tell him even whores are higher up the food chain than the shit on his shoe. Where does he get off, looking down his nose at me?’

‘He’s a bit lacking in the social skills department.’

‘You can say that again.’ She blew out a stream of smoke and scowled. ‘So are you going to treat me any better?’

Twenty minutes later, the two of them were almost cosy. The mugs of tea he’d brought as an ice-breaker were empty, and they’d got through the hardest part, the actual discovery of the body. ‘Just how long had this arrangement been going on?’ Kevin asked conversationally.

Dee lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug. ‘About three months, I suppose. Sandie used to share the room with another girl, Mo, but she moved back to Leeds so Sandie asked me to come in with her.’

‘How did it work in practice?’

Dee flipped open her cigarette packet and looked in disgust at the three remaining cigarettes. ‘You’re going to need to find a fag machine if we’re going to be at this much longer.’

‘Don’t worry about that. Tell me about the arrangement.’ Kevin gave her his best sympathetic smile.

Dee scowled. It brought the fine lines on her skin into sharp relief, making her look her age. ‘Sandie has the early shift. Most nights she likes to knock off about ten. She’s got a kid. A little lad, Sean. Her mum looks after him. Sandie likes to get home in time to get a decent kip before she gets him up in the morning for school. Any time after half past ten, the room was mine.’

Kevin tried not to think how Sean would be feeling when he woke up tomorrow morning to discover his mother had been murdered. Instead, he concentrated on what Dee was saying. ‘So how come you didn’t find her there last night?’ he asked.

‘I wasn’t working last night.’ She clocked the look of surprise on his face. ‘If you must know, I had the shits. I must have eaten something dodgy. There was no way I could turn tricks, the state I was in.’

It made sense. Even whores could throw a sickie, Kevin thought. ‘So as far as you knew, everything was normal? When you went up with your punter you expected the room to be empty?’

Dee closed her eyes and shuddered at the memory. ‘Yeah.’

‘Had you seen Sandie at all earlier in the evening?’

Dee shook her head. ‘I wouldn’t have unless I was working, and I wasn’t. I had a couple of drinks in the Nag’s Head before I got started, but I never saw Sandie.’

‘Where did she normally work?’

‘Down the end of Campion Boulevard. Just past the mini-roundabout.’

Kevin pictured it in his mind’s eye. Only fifty yards down the side street and Sandie would have been at the entrance to the alley where the shared room was. ‘What about regulars?’ he asked.

Dee suddenly lost her composure. Her eyes welled up with tears and her voice emerged as a strangled wail. ‘I don’t know. Look, we shared the room and the rent, we didn’t live in each other’s pockets, I don’t know what she did or who she did it with.’

Kevin reached across the table and took her hand. Astonishment overcame her emotional outburst and her mouth fell open. ‘I’m sorry. We just need to explore every possibility if we’re going to have any chance of catching him.’

Dee snorted derisively, pulling away from him. ‘Listen to you. Anybody would think it was a respectable mother of three who’d been killed, not some throwaway tart.’

Kevin shook his head sorrowfully. ‘I don’t know who you’ve been listening to, Dee, but we don’t treat anybody as a throwaway victim here. My guvnor wouldn’t stand for it.’

Dee looked momentarily uncertain. ‘You mean that?’

‘I mean it. Nobody on this investigation is giving any less than a hundred per cent. Now, I want you to come upstairs with me and look at some photographs. Will you do that for me, Dee?’

‘All right,’ she said. It was hard to say who was the more surprised.

After midnight, the fluorescent lights in Carol’s office seemed indecently bright, turning skin tones grey. Carol was reading the scant computer files on Derek Tyler’s murders when the door opened and Tony walked in. ‘It’s rubbish, you know,’ he said without preamble.

Carol, accustomed to the vagaries of his conversational style, humoured him. Thanks for coming in. What’s rubbish?’

‘Copycats. They don’t happen. Don’t exist–not in sexual homicide.’ He dropped into the chair opposite her desk and sighed.

‘What are you saying, Tony? That Derek Tyler managed to be in two places at once?’

‘I don’t know anything about Derek Tyler until I read the files. What I do know is that whatever we’ve got here, it’s not a copycat.’

Carol struggled to make sense of what she was hearing. ‘But if the MO is the same…?’

‘Then you’ve got the same killer.’ He gave her an apologetic smile and shrugged.

That’s not possible. From what Don says, and from what I’ve read here, there was no doubt on the forensics. And Derek Tyler is behind bars.’

Tony yanked the chair forward and leaned on the desk. His face was inches from hers. ‘What is sexual homicide about?’ he demanded.

Carol knew the answer to this one. The perverted gratification of desire.’

‘Good, good,’ he said, moving even closer. ‘How many lovers have you had?’

Flustered, Carol looked away. ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

‘More than one, right?’ he continued insistently.

Carol gave in. It was easier than the alternative. ‘More than one,’ she agreed.

‘And have any of them ever behaved identically in bed?’ Tony asked, as if the answer would settle an important argument.

Carol started to see a glimmer of where he was going with this. ‘No.’ Tony’s intense blue eyes were irresistible. In spite of herself, she grew tense at his physical closeness. Whether he recognized that or not, he gave no clue.

His voice dropped, becoming intimate and gentle. ‘My particular needs can only be met by one specific ritualistic process. I need you bound to the bed, I need you clothed, I need your voice stilled by a leather gag, I need you in my power and I need to destroy the manifestation of your sexuality.’ He took a deep breath and pulled back. ‘What are the chances that there are two of us out there who want exactly the same thing?’

Comprehension dawned on Carol. She relaxed now the immediacy of the intimacy had receded. ‘Point taken. But we’re still left with an identical MO. Which is a problem for me.’

Tony leaned back and his voice changed. Carol recognized the shift. Now he was thinking out loud, unformed conclusions bumping into each other. It had taken him a while to be comfortable enough with her to riff like this, but now it was almost as if he saw her as an extension of himself in these moments of verbal reverie. ‘Unless of course someone wanted to get rid of Sandie specifically and thought it would be clever to do it in a way that made us run around like headless chickens looking for an impossible killer.’

‘I suppose that’s conceivable,’ Carol said reluctantly.

‘I mean, if it wasn’t for the history, tying it into past cases, it wouldn’t be that far out of the ordinary. Extreme, but not extraordinary.’

‘Jesus, Tony,’ Carol protested. ‘You think what he did to her wasn’t extraordinary?’

‘Divorce your personal response from your professional one, Carol,’ he said quietly. ‘You’ve seen worse than that. A lot worse. Whoever did this still has a lot to learn about sexual sadism.’

‘I’d forgotten how far from normal you are,’ she said wearily.

‘That’s why you need me,’ he said simply. ‘Probably the only really interesting aspect of it is that she wasn’t undressed. I mean, if you go to the trouble and expense of going back to a room with a hooker, I’d have thought you’d want her to take her clothes off. I know I would. Otherwise, you might as well just do it in the back of the car or up against a wall.’

‘So what does that say to you?’

‘Rape.’ The word hung in the air between them. For months it had been unspoken and unspeakable. But now it was out in the open. Tony raised his shoulders in an apologetic shrug.

Carol struggled to stay in the professional zone. ‘Why do you say that? There’s no sign of a struggle back there. Presumably Sandie agreed to be tied up. Presumably he’d agreed to pay her.’

‘Absolutely. But he wants it to feel like it’s rape. So he doesn’t want his victim undressed. That way he can fool himself that he’s a rapist.’

It was Carol’s turn to look puzzled. ‘He wants to pretend he’s a rapist? And then he kills them? Why can’t he just pretend to be a murderer?’

Tony sighed. ‘I don’t know that yet, Carol.’

It’s ironic, but he’s calmer now the streets are full of cops. It’s what he expected, and it’s always comforting when what he expects happens, even if it’s bad shit. Because at least then he knows it’s not something worse.

He was doing a bit of business in the toilets at Stan’s Café when he saw the blue strobe of their lights through the high frosted-glass window. One set of lights could have been anything, but three together had to be Sandie. And he didn’t panic. He’s proud of that. Before the Voice, he probably would have run, just as a matter of principle. But now he carried on selling rocks to the nervy black kid, acting surprised when he tried to hurry the action along because of the bizzies outside.

The kid had barely walked out the door when the conversation started. ‘They’ve found her,’ the Voice said, warm and caressing. ‘They’re going to be all over Temple Fields tonight. They’re going to want to talk to everybody. They’re going to want to talk to you. And that’s fine. Just fine. You know what you’re going to say, don’t you?’

He gave the door a nervous glance. ‘Yeah. I know.’

‘Humour me. Let me hear it again,’ the Voice coaxed.

‘I was round and about, just like usual. Dropped in at Stan’s, had a couple of beers in the Queen of Hearts. I never saw Sandie all night. I sometimes used to see her down the end of Campion Boulevard, but I never saw her last night.’

‘And if they ask you for alibi names?’

‘I just act thick. Like I can’t tell one night from another. Everybody knows I’m a bit slow, so they won’t think anything of it.’

‘That’s right. Vague is good. Vague is what they expect from you. You did a great job last night. Wonderful footage. When you get home tonight, there’ll be a little reward waiting for you.’

‘You don’t have to do that,’ he protested, meaning it. ‘I’m sorted.’

‘You deserve it. You’re a very special young man.’

He felt a warm glow inside, a warm glow that’s still there. Nobody but the Voice has ever thought anything about him was special, except his educational needs.

So now he’s out there, mooching around like usual. He checks out the cops, a mixture of uniforms and obvious CID. They’re working their way down both sides of the street. He could go back to Stan’s and wait for them to come to him, or he could amble towards them like a fool with nothing to hide.

He recognizes one of the CID from before, when they were all over Temple Fields a couple of years ago. A big Geordie. Geordie didn’t treat you like shit. He changes his angle of approach to come close to Geordie and the woman he’s working with. They’re talking to a punter, but he’s got nothing to say, he can’t wait to be away. He’s probably given them a moody name and address and he wants to skip before they catch him out.

They step back and the punter scuttles off sideways like a crab. The cop looks up and sees him. He’s got that ‘I know you but I can’t put a name to you’ look. He gives Geordie a stupid grin and says hi. Geordie says he’s Detective Inspector Merrick.

He repeats the name a couple of times to fix it good and proper because he knows the Voice will want to know everything. He tells Geordie his name and address almost before he asks and the woman cop writes it down. She’s not bad looking. A bit on the skinny side, but he’s learning to like them like that. The cop asks if he’d heard about Sandie and he says yes, everybody’s talking. And he comes out with the lines that the Voice has carved on his brain. Word perfect.

They ask if he saw anybody acting strangely. He laughs loudly, playing up to the image of the Gay Village idiot. ‘Everybody acts strange round here,’ he says.

‘You’re not kidding,’ the woman cop mutters under her breath. ‘Can anybody vouch for your movements last night?’

He looks puzzled. Mr Merrick says, ‘Who saw you around? Who can confirm where you were last night?’

He opens his eyes wide. ‘I dunno,’ he says. ‘Last night, it was just the same as every other night, you know? I don’t remember stuff too good, Mr Merrick.’

‘You remembered you didn’t see Sandie,’ the woman chipped in. Smart-arsed cow.

‘Only because that’s what everybody’s talking about,’ he says, feeling a tickle of sweat at the base of his spine. ‘That’s a big thing, not a little thing like who was in the café or the pub.’

Mr Merrick pats him on the shoulder. He takes a card out of his pocket and tucks it into his hand. ‘If you hear anything, you give me a call, right?’ And they’re off, ready for the next friendly little chat.

Not a flicker of doubt. Not a breath of suspicion. He fooled them. They were talking to an assassin and they had no idea. So who’s the thickie now?

Carol eased the door shut, not wanting to disturb Michael and Lucy. She was aware how even slight noises carried in the high-ceilinged loft. She slipped out of her shoes and padded through to the kitchen at one end of the open-plan living space. The concealed fluorescent strips that cast light on the worktop were turned on, revealing her cat Nelson sprawled on his side, soaking up the warmth. He twitched one ear as she approached and let out a low rumble that the charitable might have interpreted as a welcome. Carol scratched his head, then noticed the sheet of paper he was half-obscuring. She slid it out from under him, ignoring his wriggle of protest. ‘Hi, Sis. Lucy’s doing an armed robbery in Leeds tomorrow and Thursday, we got last-minute tickets for the opera so I’m staying over there with her tonight. See you Thursday night. Love, M.’

Carol crumpled the paper and tossed it in the bin, allowing herself to be momentarily wistful about the prospect of a night at the opera in good company. Anything was better than thinking about a night alone in the apartment. Opening the fridge to take out the half-eaten tin of cat food, she was drawn irresistibly to the bottle of Pinot Grigio sitting in the door. She took both out, fed the cat and contemplated the wine.

In her battle for restoration, Carol had resisted the easy comfort of drink, nervous of its easy promise of oblivion. She’d told herself she didn’t want to sleepwalk through the aftermath of the rape. She wanted to deal with it, to unpick its effects and put herself back together in something approximating the right order. But tonight she wanted erasure. She couldn’t bear the thought of closing her eyes and seeing the images she’d brought home from the mortuary. Without anaesthetic, there was no way she was going to sleep. And without sleep, there was no way she could effectively lead the hunt for Sandie Foster’s killer. Carol raked through the cutlery drawer for the corkscrew and hurriedly opened the bottle. Full glass in hand, she leaned against the worktop and buried her fingers in Nelson’s fur, grateful for the beat of his heart against her skin.

Before last night, she’d had nothing in common with Sandie other than their gender. But what had happened to the prostitute had given her a sort of kinship with the woman charged with hunting down her killer. They both possessed a victimhood that had been conferred because they’d both been guilty of being female in a world where some men believed they deserved never to feel powerless. Sandie hadn’t merited what had happened to her any more than Carol had.

Carol drank steadily, topping up her glass whenever it fell below the halfway mark. She understood the terror Sandie must have known as she realized there was no escape from her attacker. She knew that sense of utter helplessness, knew the absolute fear of the prey that has no defence against the predator. But in one crucial sense, perverse though it sounded, Sandie had been luckier than Carol. She hadn’t had to find a way to live with what had been done to her.

Tony stood by Carol’s side, his eyes focused on Sandie Foster’s lifeless face. He didn’t mind being present at post mortems. If he was honest, it intrigued him to watch the pathologist uncovering the messages contained by the dead. Tony read corpses too, but his was a different text. What they had in common was that they both received communication from the killer via the conduit of his victim.

The body lay in a pool of halogen light, the surrounding room a collage of shadows. Dr Vernon, the pathologist, stooped over the body. It offered a gruesome illustration in contrast. Below the waist, Sandie’s body was still caked in blood, a study in scarlet. Above the waist, she was apparently untouched. The plastic bags covering her hands partially obscured the bruising at her wrists, allowing the illusion of wholeness to persist. ‘Poorly nourished,’ Vernon said. ‘Underweight for her height. Signs of intravenous drug use–’ He pointed to the needletracks on her arms.

He leaned forward and gently probed her mouth open. ‘Slight bruising on the inside of the mouth. Most likely as a result of the gag we removed earlier. Some indications of long-term amphetamine abuse.’

‘I know you hate it when we jump the gun,’ Carol said. ‘But can you give me any indication on cause of death yet?’

Vernon turned and gave her a wintry smile. ‘I see you haven’t acquired patience in your time away from us, Carol. So far, I see nothing to contradict the obvious. She bled to death as a result of injuries inflicted vaginally. The tissue in the area is macerated almost beyond recognition. Not a pleasant way to go.’

‘She didn’t die quickly?’ Carol asked. Tony could feel anxiety vibrating from her. He could also smell stale alcohol on her breath. He’d only managed four hours’ sleep himself; God alone knew how little sleep Carol had managed to squeeze in between the bottle and the morgue. It certainly hadn’t been enough, judging by the bruised smudges under her eyes.

Vernon shook his head. ‘No. No arterial bleeding. This was slow exsanguination. She would have been alive probably for an hour or more, in terrible pain and shock.’

There was a long silence as they absorbed the information. Tony hoped Carol was not contemplating Sandie’s suffering too closely. He gave himself a mental shake. He had to stop concentrating on Carol. He had a job to do, and while that job might be easier if he could help Carol on a personal level, he had to keep enough distance to allow himself to do what he was paid for. Mapping the mind of a murderer was never an easy task, and he couldn’t afford to ignore an opportunity as good as this for finding a way in.

A long, slow, painful death. ‘He watched her die,’ he said softly.

Carol’s head jerked round. ‘What?’

That’s the whole point of a lingering death. The killer wants to savour what he’s created. He’ll have recorded it as well. Video, probably. But you might want to check the room for fibre-optic cameras. It’s possible he wanted to watch the discovery of the body too.’

‘He stayed around till she was dead?’

Tony nodded. ‘High risk. He’s confident, this one. He knew enough about Sandie’s routines to feel safe that they weren’t going to be disturbed. He’s probably paid her to have sex before so he could check out the lie of the land. He won’t have been able to manage intercourse, but he’ll have wanted to talk, to find out her regular patterns. You should ask around, see if she mentioned anything to any of her mates.’

Carol filed the information away for future action. Vernon unpeeled the plastic bags from Sandie’s hands and began taking scrapings from under her nails. ‘Any thoughts on time of death?’ Carol asked.

‘An imprecise science at the best of times,’ Vernon said drily. ‘My best guess would be somewhere between midnight and eight yesterday morning.’

‘No way to tell if she had sex before she was attacked, I suppose?’ Carol asked.

‘No chance. The damage to the surrounding tissues is so severe it will be impossible to tell whether there was any ante-mortem bruising. If it’s any comfort to you, there’s no apparent sign of any gross anal penetration.’

Before Carol could respond, the door behind them opened. Tony glanced over his shoulder. That single look told him the woman who had entered was a police officer. There was something unmistakable about her casual air of authority in this context. She wore a long black leather coat, the collar turned up against the blustery weather outside, making her look as if she was auditioning for a feminist version of The Matrix. She barely glanced at the body on the table before crossing to Carol.

‘Morning, DCI Jordan,’ she said. ‘Mr Brandon said I’d find you here.’

Carol hid her surprise, though not from Tony. He knew her well enough to read the faint rise of the brows, the slight widening of the eyes. ‘Sergeant Shields,’ she said. ‘What brings you here?’

‘Mr Brandon didn’t call you?’ Jan’s face showed consternation.

‘No.’

‘Ah. I expect he’s left a message on your voice-mail. I tried to call you myself earlier and I couldn’t raise you. Anyway, he’s seconded me to your team for this investigation. He said you were a sergeant under strength and thought it might be useful to have someone on the team who knows the street scene.’

‘That makes sense.’ Carol’s voice had ice at its heart. Already Brandon seemed to be reneging on his promise to give her a free hand, and she didn’t like what that said about her.

‘He seemed to think so,’ Jan said, turning towards Tony. ‘And this must be the man who reads our minds.’

Tony assumed the expression of a man who’s heard it all before. ‘Only if you’re a sexually motivated serial offender.’

Jan laughed. ‘My secrets are safe, then.’ She held out a hand. ‘I’m Jan Shields.’

Tony returned the handshake. Strong, warm hand. Exactly what he’d expect from someone who’d just demonstrated how sure of herself she was.

Jan turned back to Carol. ‘Another one bites the dust, eh?’

‘In a particularly unpleasant way,’ Carol said repressively.

Jan shrugged, stepping forward to see better what Vernon was doing. ‘It’s a high-risk occupation.’

‘So is being a cop,’ Carol said. ‘But when one of us dies, we get a little respect.’

Jan gave an apologetic smile. ‘Sorry, I don’t mean to sound callous. But when you’ve been in Vice as long as I have, they all start to look like meat while they’re still on the hoof.’

Tony didn’t find Jan’s attitude surprising. He’d met too many cops–and clinical psychologists–on the edge of burnout not to have some sympathy with the defensive positions they adopted. He took a step away, moving closer to the table. ‘Did you do the post mortems two years ago?’ he asked.

Vernon nodded. ‘I did.’

‘What do you think?’ Tony asked.

‘If I didn’t know better, I would say this woman had been the victim of the same killer. The pattern of the wounds is quite distinctive. Unique, really. The only time I’ve seen it before was in the murders Derek Tyler was found guilty of.’

‘What did he use? A knife of some sort?’

‘As I recall, Tyler never gave up the weapon. At the time, I surmised it was something home-made,’ Vernon said. ‘The wounds certainly don’t match any implement I’ve ever come across. And I did ask one of my colleagues who’s an expert in toolmarks for an opinion.’

‘So, what kind of home-made?’ Carol interjected.

Vernon studied the blade of his scalpel. ‘It’s hard to be certain. The wounds are consistent with a narrow, flexible blade. A razor blade rather than a craft knife. But there are dozens, hundreds of cuts. The best guess my colleague and I could come up with was something along the lines of a latex dildo with a series of razor blades inserted quite deeply into it.’

Carol’s intake of breath was audible. ‘Jesus,’ she said.

‘Danger, nutters at work,’ Jan said bitterly. ‘That right, Dr Hill?’

Tony frowned. It made no sense. Nothing added up. If the police had captured the wrong man, the real killer should have reacted by taking another victim then and there. Sexually motivated murderers didn’t like other people being given credit for their handiwork. To wait two years to strike again was all wrong. He needed to talk this through. ‘Carol?’ he said softly.

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