The noise and heat hit her with a physical shock when she pulled open the door and she faltered a little, trying to remember which way she needed to go. The door to the outside world was to the left, she vaguely recalled, and set herself to push through the crowd. She was walking tall, acting sober, shoulders pulled well back and head up. It fooled no one except Kelly herself.

The crowd was thicker around the door, with smokers coming and going from the terrace that overlooked the water.

‘Excuse me,’ Kelly mumbled, trying and failing to shoulder past a heavyset man who didn’t seem to hear her or notice her cannoning into his back.

‘Need a minicab, love? Let me give you a hand,’ said a voice in her ear as an arm snaked around her waist. ‘Time to go home, young lady.’

Without consciously agreeing, she found herself making progress, guided skilfully and swiftly through the throng until they reached the chill of outside air. It was a clear night, still and cold, and the frost was already starting to bite.

She turned then, ready to thank her rescuer, and found herself looking at a stranger, a man her father’s age or older. Kelly struggled to focus as the man’s face swooped up and down in front of her. There were rimless glasses, and hair that was surely too dark to be natural, and a moustache over a mouth that smiled, that moved, that was saying where do you live my cab is just around the corner why don’t you come with me and I’ll see you home it’s no trouble it’s not far I don’t have anything better to do give me your bag that’s the girl are these your keys I’ll take care of you don’t you worry. You don’t want to be out on your own not at the moment not safe is it?

Somehow, Kelly found herself following the man obediently. She wanted to take her bag back and find her own way home, but it seemed easier to go along with him. Her feet were hurting for one thing; the platform boots that had looked so glamorous before she left the house were pinching her toes and rubbing her heels, and the one on the right was squeezing her calf. They were far too high for a long walk home. And he was right; it probably wasn’t safe to be out on her own.

The man was nice, Kelly thought hazily. He was polite, well mannered, thoughtful. Older men were, weren’t they? They knew how to be gentlemen. PJ had never held her hand. PJ had never opened the car door for her and waited to close it after she sat down (a little heavily, truth be told, but then again he was a perfect gentleman and stared into the distance rather than at her skirt where it had ridden up). She usually got into the back when she took a taxi, but he’d opened the front passenger door and she didn’t want to be rude.

He got in and started the engine, then helped her with her seat belt before he drove off. He revved the engine unnecessarily so the sound bounced off the buildings either side of the road.

‘Mind if I smoke?’ Kelly asked, pushing her luck, and was surprised when he nodded. The car smelled of mint and pine air freshener, two strong scents that didn’t quite manage to disguise the tang of petrol, as if he’d spilt some on his shoes the last time he’d filled up. He wasn’t a smoker, she guessed. But he’d agreed to it; he couldn’t mind that much.

The only dry fag in the packet was the lucky one, the last one, the one Kelly always turned upside down when she opened a new pack so it stood out, a little white soldier standing proud beside the light-brown filter tips of the others. She fitted it between her lips and cupped her hands around the flame of her lighter, shielding herself automatically from a wind that wasn’t there. She had the lighter turned up too high; it nearly took her fringe off.

‘Fuck.’ She blinked a few times, dazzled, then shot a guilty look at the stranger. ‘Sorry. Shouldn’t swear.’

He shrugged. ‘Doesn’t bother me. What’s your name?’

‘Kelly.’ She flipped down the visor and inspected herself in the mirror, fluffing her fringe. ‘What’s your name?’

He hesitated for a second. ‘Dan.’

‘Where are you from, Dan? Birmingham?’ It was a Midlands accent, she’d thought, but he shook his head.

‘Round here.’

‘Oh yeah?’

He nodded, his eyes on the road. Kelly looked out too, peering at the shops they were passing. She frowned.

‘This isn’t the way.’

He didn’t answer.

‘This isn’t the way,’ she said again, embarrassed to be complaining when he was being so helpful. ‘You’ve gone wrong. It was left back there, not straight on.’

‘This is a better way.’

‘It isn’t,’ Kelly said, nettled. ‘I should know how to get to my own house.’

The only response she got was a change of gear as he accelerated.

‘Hey,’ she said, warning in her voice as she braced one hand against the dashboard, the surface gritty with accumulated dirt. ‘Take it easy.’

The car bounced down the road, going a little bit too fast for her liking. He looked nervous, she thought, blinking hard, trying to focus. His lips were chapped, and every so often he passed his tongue over them. It made Kelly’s lips feel dry and she had to stop herself from doing the same. All of a sudden she felt cold, and cold sober too, the fog of alcohol lifting but leaving fear in its place. What had she done? All the times her mother had warned her not to trust strangers and here she was in a car with a man she’d never met before, going who knows where on a dark Thursday night. There was someone killing young women, she’d seen the headline in her dad’s paper. Four girls dead, dumped and burned. Girls like her. The police hadn’t a clue who the killer was, or how to catch him. He was on the loose, preying on vulnerable women out on their own. Even Kelly, who never paid much attention to the news, had heard about him. It wasn’t late; there were still people out on the streets, but Kelly had never felt so alone.

‘Listen, why don’t you let me out here? I’d rather walk if it’s all the same to you.’

‘Just relax.’

The car purred to a stop at traffic lights. Kelly ran her hand over the door beside her, looking for the handle.

‘It’s broken,’ he said without looking around. ‘You can only open it from the outside. Now sit tight and stop making such a fuss.’

‘I want to get out.’ Her voice had risen, a raw edge of hysteria to it that made the driver wince.

‘Calm down, would you. I’ll stop and let you out if that’s what you want.’ He turned into a narrow residential street that was lined with parked cars. ‘Nowhere to pull in. Let’s see what’s down here.’

‘Down here’ was an alley between gardens, a dead end that wasn’t overlooked, Kelly realised, her heart thumping. She felt as if it was going to burst out of her chest. The car slowed to a stop.

‘What’s going on? Why are you stopping?’

‘I thought you wanted to get out. I’ll let you out.’ He turned off the engine, then the lights, and the night closed in around them. Kelly could only see a silhouette beside her. Her nostrils flared, picking up the minty smell and the faintest whiff of petrol again, and she thought of the girls lying where they’d been dumped, of their bodies burning, of the newspaper headlines that talked about the Burning Man, and she heard him move and couldn’t tell if he was reaching towards her in the dark car and without thinking, without even being aware that she’d moved, she reached down and slipped out the knife her little brother had given her, the one he took to school in case he got into a fight, the one that had been digging into her ankle for hours, the flick knife with the narrow blade and the wicked sharp point, and there wasn’t even enough light to catch the edge of the blade as she swung with it in her left hand, aiming low, aiming for the soft part below the ribcage but above the belt, and he didn’t have time to react at all before the knife was in him and out again and slipping back into him though he tried to grab the blade that time when Kelly pulled it out and the knife was dark now, and wet, and the man was whimpering, and she could smell him and smell blood – it was like a butcher’s shop on a hot day, that sweetish reek – and he’d pissed himself and she was screaming, she realised, her heart pounding as loud as a drum so she couldn’t even hear what she was saying. But she was still saying it as she scrambled over the seat into the back of the car and fumbled for the door handle and flung herself out, acting on instinct, her hands, all covered with blood, smearing along the paintwork, her knees buckling as she tried to run in her stupid boots, her sore feet forgotten. She was still saying it under her breath as she hobbled down the alley towards the houses, towards help, her breath sawing in and out of her lungs as if it was edged with rusty teeth. It was what she said to the woman who came to the door and screamed at the sight of her, and what she said to the police who responded to the 999 call, and what she said to the doctors and nurses later on at the hospital, when she was being examined. It was the one thing she was sure of, the thing that had kept her alive.

‘Not me. I don’t want to be the next one. Not me. Not me.’

Chapter One

MAEVE

I didn’t know where I was or what I was doing when the phone rang; I didn’t even know that it was the phone that had woken me. I came up from miles below the surface and opened an eye as one part of my brain tried to work out what had disturbed me and another part focused on how to make the noise stop. It resolved into a low rattle that was my phone vibrating crossly on the bedside table along with the high-pitched shrill of the most annoying ring tone I could have chosen. Fumbling for it in the dark, I sideswiped it and managed to push it off the table. It fell face down in the carpet, still ringing, the sound now slightly muffled. I’d winged it but not killed it. The bonus was that now it was a little bit harder to reach. I leaned out of bed at a dangerous angle, raking the carpet with my fingers, trying to get to it.

‘Mmph!’

Most of the nuance was lost in the pillow, but I interpreted Ian’s comment as ‘answer the fucking phone’, which was pretty much what I was thinking myself. Along with what time is it? and what does this eejit want?

I got it at last and stabbed at the buttons until it stopped making a noise, trying to read the screen. LANGTON. Rob. I squinted at the time and read 03.27. Half past three in the morning and Detective Constable Rob Langton was calling me. I was waking up now, my brain starting to crank into gear, but my mouth hadn’t caught up with the change of plans and was still slack with sleep. When I said hello, it sounded slurred, as if I’d been drinking for the last – I worked it out – three and a half hours instead of having some much-needed shut-eye. Three and a half hours. That made six hours of sleep in the last forty-eight. I squeezed my eyes closed and wished I hadn’t added it up. Somehow, knowing the numbers made me feel worse.

‘Did I wake you, Kerrigan?’ I would have recognised the Manchester twang anywhere.

‘You know you did. What do you want?’

I asked, but I already knew. There were only two reasons why Rob Langton would be ringing me at that hour of the morning sounding excited. One: there was another body. Two: they’d caught the killer. Either way, I wasn’t going back to sleep any time soon.

‘Got him.’

‘No way.’ I sat up in bed and put the light on, ignoring a groan from beside me and squinting as I tried to concentrate. ‘Where? How?’

‘We had a bit of help. Nice young lady out on the beers with a bladed article didn’t take kindly to being next on the Burning Man’s list.’

‘He’s not dead.’ My heart was pounding. If he was dead, that was it. No answers. No trial.

No justice.

‘Nah, he’s clinging on. He’s in hospital. In surgery, at the minute. Two stab wounds to the abdomen; she lacerated his bowel.’

‘Ouch.’

‘Yeah, couldn’t happen to a nicer person.’

‘Anyone we know?’ I rubbed my eyes with the heel of my hand and tried not to yawn.

‘Not known at all. Never been arrested before, and he hadn’t come up in this enquiry.’

I sighed. That wasn’t great news. We hadn’t even been close to catching him, then. We’d just been lucky. Though the girl had been luckier still. I wasn’t a fan of people wandering around carrying knives, but I’d seen enough dead women in the past few weeks to think it wasn’t such a bad idea.

‘His name’s Vic Blackstaff. He had all his documents on him – driver’s licence, work ID. He’s in his mid-fifties, does shift work for a call centre in Epsom. Lives in Peckham. Drives through south-west London to get home in the small hours of the morning. Plenty of opportunity.’

‘Older than we’d thought,’ I commented. ‘Shift work fits, though. Where did it happen?’

‘Richmond.’

‘That’s quite a long way out of the usual area. Up to now he’s stuck to Kennington, Stockwell – nowhere as far out as Richmond.’ I was frowning.

‘Yeah, but his usual area is flooded with uniforms. Makes sense that he would be hunting elsewhere, doesn’t it?’ Rob sounded confident and I gave a mental shrug; who was I to second-guess a serial killer?

‘They’re going through his car at the moment,’ Rob went on. ‘We’re waiting at the hospital.’

‘Who’s we?’

‘Me and the boss. And DI Judd, unfortunately. We’ll be interviewing the young lady as soon as the doctors tell us we can talk to her. She’s still being checked out.’

‘How is she? Is she—’

I didn’t want to fill in the rest of the sentence. Is she going to make it? Is she badly beaten? Is she burned? How far had he got?

‘She’s fine. Shaken up. Nothing wrong with her but we haven’t been allowed in to see her yet. She says she’s not ready.’ Rob sounded impatient, which nettled me. Why shouldn’t she take her time before speaking to the police? She’d had a shock. What she needed was a sympathetic ear. And I was the ideal person to provide it. Energy flooded through my limbs, adrenalin pushing fatigue into a corner, to be ignored until I had time to give in to it again. Three hours’ sleep was plenty. I was already out of bed, making for the door, stumbling on rubbery legs that ached as if I’d run a marathon the day before.

‘Well, I’ll be there soon. Maybe they’ll let me talk to her.’ The perks of being the only woman in Superintendent Godley’s inner circle were not legion, but now and then it came in handy.

‘Why doesn’t that surprise me? Nought to sixty in ten minutes, that’s you.’

‘That’s why you phoned me, isn’t it?’ I was in the bathroom now, and debated whether I could risk peeing while on the phone. He’d hear. I’d have to wait.

‘I knew you’d want to be here.’ That was only half the story; it suited them all for me to be there. I could hear Rob grinning; he was a smug git sometimes, but I could forgive him, because when all was said and done, I did want to be there, and without a call from him, I wouldn’t have known a thing about it until I’d seen it on the news.

‘Which hospital?’

‘Kingston.’

‘I’ll be there in half an hour,’ I said before I’d thought about it properly. It was a long way from Primrose Hill to Kingston and I desperately needed a shower. My hair was sticking to my head. There was no way I was leaving with dirty hair. Not again. ‘Make that forty minutes.’

‘We’re in the ICU. Phones off, so ring the hospital if you need us.’

‘Will do.’

I flicked the water on before going to the loo, but even so, it wasn’t even close to warm enough when I forced myself to step into the slate-lined shower area, wincing as the spray hit my goose-pimpled skin. The showerhead was the size of a dinner plate and pumped out rain-forest levels of water; it was just a shame that it never got hot enough for me. Style over substance, as usual. But it wasn’t my flat so I couldn’t really complain. I was sharing it, officially, but I felt more like a guest. And not necessarily a welcome one, at times.

I had balled my hands together under my chin, hugging body heat to myself, and it was an effort to unknot my fingers and reach for the shampoo once the water started to approach tepidity. Haste made me fumble the shampoo cap and I swore as I heard it skitter around the sloping tiles that led to the drain. I left it there, hearing my mother’s voice in my head, sure, it can’t fall any further … Two minutes later, I stepped on it and had to muffle a yelp in the crook of my elbow as a sharp edge dug into the arch of my foot. Swearing was a help. I swore. A lot.

I scrubbed at my scalp until the muscles in my forearms complained and rinsed my hair for as long as I could allow myself to, eyes closed against the lather that slid down my face. Bliss to be clean again, joy to know that the case was coming to an end. I wanted to stay in there for ever with my eyes closed; I wanted to sleep – how I wanted to sleep. But I couldn’t. I had to get going. And by the time I got out of the shower, I was what passed for awake these days.

Back in the bedroom, I tried to be quiet, but I couldn’t help rattling the hangers in the wardrobe when I was taking out a suit. I heard stirring behind me in the bed and bit my lip.

‘What’s up?’

I wouldn’t have spoken to Ian if he hadn’t spoken to me; that was the rule I observed about getting up and leaving in the middle of the night. Not that I was sure he’d ever noticed there was a rule.

‘Going to meet a murderer.’

That earned me an opened eye. ‘You got him. Well done.’

‘It wasn’t exactly all my own work, but thanks.’

He rolled over onto his back and threw an arm over his face, shielding his eyes from the light. He was in his natural position now, hogging the middle of the bed. I suppressed the impulse to push him back onto his own side and hauled the sheet up instead, tucking him in. Look, I care about you. See how thoughtful I am.

‘Mmm,’ was the response. He was on his way back to sleep. I slipped the dry-cleaner’s bag off my suit and balled it up, squashing it into the bin. I should have taken it off sooner. The suit smelled of chemicals and I wrinkled my nose, reluctant to put it on. The forecast was for a cold day, and rain. I thought longingly of jeans tucked into boots, of chunky jumpers and long knitted scarves. God, dressing like a grown-up was a pain.

I sat on the edge of the bed to deal with my tights, coaxing them over damp skin, wary of ripping them. My hair dripped onto my shoulders, cold water running down my back. I hadn’t got time for this. I hadn’t got time for immaculate. Slowly, infinitely slowly, I worked the material up over my thighs and stood to haul the tights the rest of the way. It was not the most elegant moment of getting dressed, and I wasn’t pleased to turn and find Ian staring at me, an unreadable expression on his face.

‘So is this it?’

‘What do you mean?’ I slipped on a shirt, then stepped into my skirt, zipping it up quickly and smoothing it over my hips. That was better. More dignified. The waistband was loose, I noticed, the skirt hanging from my hips rather than my waist. It took the hem from on the knee to over it, from flattering to frump. I needed to eat more. I needed to rest.

‘I mean is this the end of it? Are you going to be around more?’

‘Probably. Not for a little while – we’ve got to sort out the paperwork and get the case ready for the CPS. But after that, yeah.’

If there isn’t another serial killer waiting to take over from where the Burning Man left off. If nothing else goes wrong between now and Christmas. If all the criminals in London take the rest of the year off.

I was looking for shoes, my medium-heeled courts that didn’t so much as nod to fashion but hey, I could wear them from now until midnight without a twinge of complaint from my feet. I could even run in them if I had to. One was in the corner of the room, where I’d kicked it off. The other I eventually found under the bed, and had to sprawl inelegantly to retrieve it.

‘I hate the way they whistle and you come running.’ He sounded wide awake now, and cross. My heart sank.

‘It’s my job.’

‘Oh, it’s your job. Sorry. I didn’t realise.’

‘Don’t do this now,’ I said, stabbing my feet into my shoes and grabbing my towel. ‘I’ve got to go. It’s important and you know it.’

He’d sat up, leaning on one elbow, blue eyes hostile under thick eyebrows, his brown hair uncharacteristically untidy. ‘What I know is that I haven’t seen you for weeks. What I know is that I’ll be ringing up Camilla to say you can’t come to supper after all, and is that OK, and I’m really sorry if it’s mucked up her seating arrangement. What I know is that your job always seems to come first.’

I let him rant, towelling most of the water out of my hair and then dragging a comb through it, trying to get it into some sort of order. No time to dry it; it would dry on the way to the hospital. A few wisps, a lighter brown than the rest, were already curling around my face.

‘Camilla works in an art gallery. She has nothing to do all day but rearrange the seating plan for her little dinner parties. It’ll be a challenge for her.’

He flopped back down and stared at the ceiling. ‘You always do that.’

‘What?’ I shouldn’t have asked.

‘Put down my friends because their jobs aren’t as important or as worthwhile as yours.’

‘For God’s sake …’

‘Not everyone wants to save the world, Maeve.’

‘Yeah, it’s just as important to make it look nice,’ I snapped, and regretted it as soon as I’d said it. Camilla was sweet, sincere, a wide-eyed innocent that brought out the protective instinct in everyone who knew her, including me. Usually. The sharpness in my voice had been partly exhaustion and partly guilt; I had been thinking of skipping the dinner party she was throwing. It wasn’t that I didn’t like Ian’s friends – it was just that I couldn’t stand the questions. Any interesting cases lately? Why haven’t you caught the Burning Man yet? What’s the most hideous thing you’ve ever seen on duty? Do you wish they still had capital punishment? Can you sort out this speeding ticket for me? It was tedious and predictable and I found it acutely embarrassing to represent the Metropolitan Police to Ian’s friends. I was just one person. And traffic tickets were definitely outside my purview.

‘Ian …’

‘Aren’t you in a hurry?’

I checked my watch. ‘Yes. Let’s talk about this later, OK?’

‘Can’t wait.’

I wanted to point out that I hadn’t brought it up in the first place. Instead, I leaned across the bed and planted a kiss on the bit of Ian’s chin I could reach easily. There was no response. With a sigh, I headed to the kitchen to pick up a banana, then grabbed my bag and my coat and ran down the stairs. I closed the front door with the key in the lock so I didn’t wake the neighbours, though if they’d slept through my shower and relationship issues, they probably wouldn’t notice the door banging. If they were at home, and not on a pre-Christmas shopping trip to New York or a winter break in the Bahamas.

I stopped for a second on the doorstep, head down, my mind whirling.

‘What am I doing? What the hell am I doing?’

I hadn’t meant to say it out loud, and I wasn’t talking about work. I could handle work. My boyfriend was another matter. We’d been together for eight months, lived together for six, and from the moment I’d moved into Ian’s place, the fighting had started. I’d fallen for a big smile, broad shoulders and a job that had nothing to do with crime. He’d told me he liked the dynamic, busy detective with long legs and no ulterior motives. I wasn’t looking for a husband who could be the father to my children – yet. My eyes didn’t light up with pound signs when I heard he was in banking. It was all so easy. We saw one another when we could, snatched hours in bed at his place or mine, managed dinner together every so often and when my lease came up for renewal, Ian had taken a chance, the sort of gamble that had made him rich, and invited me to move in with him in his ludicrously over-designed, expensive flat in Primrose Hill. It hadn’t been a good idea. It had been a disaster. And I wasn’t sure how to get out of it. After two months, we hadn’t known one another, except in the biblical sense. We hadn’t worked out what we had in common, or how we might spend long winter afternoons when the weather made going out an unappealing prospect. As it turned out, we stayed in bed or we fought. There was no middle ground. I started to stay longer at work, left earlier in the morning, popped into the nick over the weekend even if I wasn’t on duty. The only silver lining was the overtime pay.

The night air was harsh and I shivered as I hurried down the road, my hair cold against my neck. I was glad of the coat Ian had bought me, full-length and caramel-coloured in fine wool that was really too nice for hacking about crime scenes, but he had insisted on it. Generosity was not one of his shortcomings – he was open-handed to a fault. Even allowing for the extra overtime cash, there was no way I could compete. We weren’t equals, couldn’t pretend to be. It was no way to live.

When I got to my car, parked where I could find a space the night before, which was not particularly close to the flat, I stopped for a second to fill my lungs with sharp-edged air and centre myself, letting the silence fill my mind. That was the idea, anyway. Somewhere an engine revved as a neighbour drove away; traffic noise was building already, even at that early hour. And I needed to be elsewhere. Enough of the Zen contemplation. I got into the car and got going.

My heels were loud on the tiled floor and Rob saw me coming a long way off. He was sitting on an upright chair with his legs stretched out in front of him, taking up most of the corridor outside the intensive care unit.

‘Morning.’

‘Is it?’ he said interestedly, handing me a cardboard cup with a plastic lid. ‘I thought it was still Thursday night.’

‘Nope. It’s Friday. The twenty-seventh of November. All day, if that helps.’

He grinned up at me, dark stubble bristling on his face, halfway to a decent beard already. Welsh forebears had given him black hair, blue eyes, pale skin and charm to burn, but he needed to shave twice a day to keep his five o’clock shadow in check. Rob never quite made it to groomed, but he was looking particularly rumpled, and I recognised his shirt as being the one he’d worn the day before.

‘You didn’t make it home.’

‘Nope.’

‘You’ve been sitting there for hours.’

‘Yep.’

‘How?’

‘That,’ he said, wagging a finger at me, ‘would be telling.’

I sat down on the chair beside him and took the lid off the cup, smelling the hot-metal steam of machine-brewed coffee. ‘How many of these have you had?’

Instead of answering, he held his hand out so I could see the tremors that made it quiver.

‘God. No more caffeine for you.’

‘Aw, Mum …’

I sipped coffee, smiling against the edge of the cup, as Rob leaned his head back against the wall and yawned.

‘You made good time. I expected it to take the full hour to get you from bed to here.’

It should have taken me longer, but I had driven comfortably over the speed limit most of the way, and had thrown the car into a space in the hospital car park, leaving it without bothering to straighten up.

‘You know me. Full of get up and go.’

‘Yeah, right. How’s Ian?’

I hesitated slightly before I answered; I really didn’t want to share the details of my domestic squabbles with my colleagues, but there was no point in pretending. Rob had met Ian a couple of times and formed his own opinion of him.

‘He was just delighted about being woken up.’

‘Sorry about that. I’m sure he understood it was important.’

I let one eyebrow rise up slowly, expressively, as I took another sip of coffee.

Rob snorted. ‘Like that, is it?’

‘What we should actually be discussing,’ I said quickly, ‘is what’s going on with the case. Where’s the boss?’

He jerked his head towards the double doors behind him. ‘In there, somewhere. He’s doctor-bothering.’

‘They still won’t let us speak to the victim?’

‘Not much of a victim. I feel more sorry for poor old Vic. He’s in recovery. Three hours of surgery, and apparently it was touch and go.’

‘My heart bleeds for him.’

‘Yeah, well, he could use the extra blood if you’re offering. He nearly died on the way to hospital. She really did a number on him.’

‘Which is why she’s alive to tell us about it,’ I pointed out.

Rob grinned at me. ‘Getting into the right frame of mind, Maeve? Starting to identify with her? Best mates by ten o’clock, is that the plan?’

‘So what?’ My coffee had cooled down enough so that I could gulp it. The caffeine was beginning to kick in. I wanted to be ready when they let us talk to the girl. I wanted to be on my toes. I wanted to get the answers we needed and bring them to my boss, Charles Godley, like a cat bringing in a dead bird as a loving present for its owner. I didn’t mind the long hours, the total commitment that he demanded from his team. I knew how lucky I was to be in the inner circle. Sixty officers on Operation Mandrake, and most of them would never get to speak to Godley face-to-face. He had his system: orders cascaded down from the top, delivered by the police he trusted to their fellow officers who were allocated tasks and the manpower to achieve them and turned loose, not to return until they’d done it. He was running the investigation that had become the media story of the year, if not the decade, and he spent far too much of his time dealing with reporters to be able to manage every aspect of the case himself. He’d picked me out of the borough and added me to his squad, and I still didn’t know why, but I was determined not to let him down.

‘So nothing.’ Rob had lost interest in teasing me. He took out his phone and started scrolling through messages, yawning as he did so. I left him to it, happy to sit in silence for a minute or two. Waiting for a break in the case had been agonising, heart-scalding. Now that it was here, I could afford to be patient.

But I couldn’t help fidgeting, all the same.

I didn’t have to wait too long, because after a couple of minutes, one of the big double doors that led to the ICU opened. Rob and I both turned to see a nurse leaning out. She was young, with honey-coloured highlights through her hair and fake-tanned skin. I had to admire her commitment to glamour at that hour of the morning. She ignored me after one quick, assessing look that took in my damp hair and make-up-free face, then smiled warmly at Rob. Here’s one you charmed earlier …

‘Your boss wants you.’

We both stood at the same time. Rob was a shade above average height and I was tall in my heels; we were eye-to-eye. Rob frowned.

‘He wants to talk to me, not you.’

‘He doesn’t know I’m here,’ I said sweetly. ‘He’d want to speak to me if he did.’

‘I’ll tell him you’re waiting.’

‘I’ll tell him myself.’

There it was. No matter how much I liked Rob, no matter how well we got on, when it came to competing for the attention of our boss, we were as mature and reasonable as children fighting over a favourite toy.

‘Suit yourself.’ He slung his jacket over his shoulder and walked past me, pushing through the swing doors with a bang. He didn’t wait to see if I was following him or hold the door open for me; not that I expected special treatment – it wasn’t as if I made a fuss about needing to be treated like a lady – but I didn’t expect outright rudeness. I abandoned my coffee cup on the chair and hurried through the door after him, practically clipping his heels. It wasn’t my imagination that he sped up, determined to get there first. If I’d known where ‘there’ was, I might have been tempted to compete, but as I didn’t, I contented myself with being one step behind as he threaded his way through the ICU.

I somehow wasn’t surprised to find that Chief Superintendent Godley had taken over one of the waiting rooms and made it his own. There were files open on the table, and a laptop that hummed quietly. Hunched over the screen was a thin, dark man with glasses and a pinched expression: DI Thomas Judd. That was no surprise: where Charlie Godley went, Tom Judd followed, and if I didn’t like him much, I had to respect the way he’d organised the admin for the investigation so far. Godley was leaning back in a low chair, his arms behind his head, shirtsleeves rolled up, looking tired but focused. He had gone grey early – his hair was almost white – but it didn’t make him look old: quite the opposite. The combination of silver hair and blue eyes was a bit of a winner, especially when Godley was also tall and broad-shouldered and altogether too photogenic for the media to be able to resist him. He was pale, though, and his eyes looked red and tired. I had to resist the urge to cluck sympathetically. Worship of the boss was not encouraged. He had no interest in commanding a cult following.

Rob tapped on the doorframe. ‘You wanted me, sir?’

Godley looked up, his eyes unfocused. ‘Yes. Good. And Maeve, you’re here too. Excellent.’

‘Rob phoned me,’ I said from over his shoulder. I knew it would make him happy to get the credit. It might even take the sting out of the fact that Godley had smiled at me. But Rob didn’t really need any help from me. He was carving out a reputation for himself quite competently.

Godley had snapped back to alertness by now. ‘Did you fill her in?’

Rob nodded.

‘So you know we’ve got a suspect. And a witness.’

There wasn’t a chance in hell that I’d get within sniffing distance of the suspect. I had schooled myself not to want what I couldn’t have. It would be the bigwigs who spoke to him, when he could talk to them. But the witness was mine. Smoothly, I said, ‘I’d like to interview her. The girl, I mean. Probably easier for me to gain her trust.’

‘We’ve been waiting for her to be willing to provide a statement, and to sober up. I’m sure you’ll have a great rapport with her.’ Judd was still bent over his screen, tapping furiously, but he was never likely to miss an opportunity to put someone down. Particularly me. And just like that, the slight nerviness I always felt in the presence of the boss changed to outright anger directed at the inspector. I hadn’t inherited my father’s red hair, but there was no question that I’d got the temper that was popularly supposed to go with it.

‘What’s that supposed to mean, sir?’

‘Exactly what I said.’ His tone was bland but there was a glint behind the glasses; he knew as well as I did – as well as everyone in the room did – that he had pretty much just called me a drunk. The same old rubbish all over again: of course I was a drinker, I was Irish. ‘Mine’s a pint of Guinness – no, make that two pints with a whiskey chaser.’ Never mind the fact that my parents were both teetotal, that I hadn’t tasted alcohol until I was twenty and that when I drank, I preferred red wine.

‘You’ll do fine,’ Godley said, ignoring the tension that was crackling through the stifling little room. ‘You can take Rob with you when you speak to her. I want to know what happened up to the point where she stabbed him. I want to know how he picked her up and how he got her into the car. What he did that made her panic. I’m working on the assumption that he did or said something that made her sure she was sitting in the car with our murderer, but I don’t know what it was, and I don’t want to talk to him without having her side of the story.’

‘Right.’ It wasn’t rocket science. It should be straightforward.

Should be.

‘This is an important witness,’ Godley said. ‘I don’t want anyone putting her back up. Treat her with respect.’

I was fairly sure this last comment wasn’t directed at me. I didn’t need to be told that and I hoped Godley knew it. Judd was a different story.

‘When can we see her?’

‘Straightaway. She’s keen to leave. She’s agreed to give us a statement, but my guess is she’s halfway out the door. Don’t hang about.’

I turned to go, but stopped when Rob spoke. ‘Any news on the car, sir? Did they find anything?’

Judd answered, his lips thin. ‘Not so far.’

‘What?’ I was genuinely confused.

‘The car is clean. No evidence of any of the things we might have expected. No knife or weapon of any kind. No accelerant.’

‘Could he have dumped it? Done a Sutcliffe and hid the evidence when he knew he was going to be arrested? He was there for a while before they found him.’ It wasn’t the first time the Yorkshire Ripper had been invoked in connection with our killer, but I was surprised at Rob for mentioning him. If there was one thing that annoyed Godley more than anything else, it was the comparisons between his investigation and the unwieldy, disorganised and ultimately futile hunt for Peter Sutcliffe, who was caught more or less by chance. And here was another parallel. It wasn’t police work that had brought us Vic Blackstaff, and the media would be all over it. Godley’s nostrils flared, but he didn’t speak, letting Judd do the talking.

‘We’ve been searching the alley and surrounding areas. But the doctors don’t think he would have been able to move easily. He was unconscious when the paramedics arrived.’

‘So …’ I said slowly.

‘So you need to find out what really happened,’ Judd finished for me. ‘Because at the moment, we don’t have the first idea.’

It was the pretty nurse who showed us to Kelly Staples’ room, or rather showed Rob, who was flirting pretty much non-stop. I followed along behind, mind whirling. This was a big moment for me. Ask the right questions. Get the right answers. Don’t irritate her. Gain her trust. Don’t assume you know what she’s going to tell you. Listen. And listen to the things she doesn’t say too.

Easy.

I pulled Rob to one side when the nurse had brought us to the door of the hospital room and wiggled off. ‘You’re taking notes, OK? No hijacking. I want to do the talking.’

‘She’s all yours, love. Like Judd said, I’m sure you’ll have a lot in common.’

‘That’s not what he said.’ I couldn’t help sounding defensive. Not you too, Rob …

‘What’s he got against you?’

‘He’s a racist, misogynist pig – didn’t you realise? He’s always making snide remarks about me.’

‘Seems like a good bloke to me.’

I thumped him, then took a second to shake my head, as if that would clear my mind, rearrange the thoughts that were swirling in my mind into some sort of coherent pattern. ‘Got your notebook?’

‘Always,’ he said, holding it up. ‘And a pen. And a spare pen, in case that one runs out.’

‘That’s my little boy scout.’ Time to go. I rearranged my face into what I hoped was a calm and non-threatening expression, then pushed open the door.

The first thing I noticed about Kelly Staples was that she had been crying, the second that she was very young. She was sitting by the bed, wearing a patterned hospital gown. Her feet were bare, plump and pale, with scarlet marks where her boots had rubbed her toes and heels. She looked washed-out, her fair hair lank around her face. Her eyes were red and piggy with tiredness. She was overweight and uneasy in her flimsy hospital gown, pulling the hem down over her knees to try to make it longer. Her mouth looked raw, as if she had been chewing her lips.

I sat down on the edge of the bed, trying to look unthreatening, and smiled.

‘Kelly? I’m Detective Constable Kerrigan. You can call me Maeve. And this is my colleague, DC Langton, who’s going to take some notes for me.’

Rob had folded himself unobtrusively into a hard chair in the corner of the room. She looked over at him, then up at me blankly. ‘Do you know when my mum is going to get here?’

‘No. I’m sorry. I’m sure she’s on her way.’

‘She’s bringing my clothes. I ain’t got no clothes. They took them.’

‘They’ll need to do a forensic examination of your clothes,’ I explained. Never mind the fact that they would have been unwearable, covered in Vic Blackstaff’s blood.

‘I want to go home.’

‘Very soon.’ My voice was gentle, as if I was speaking to a child. Which was a good point, actually. ‘How old are you, Kelly?’

‘Twenty.’

Good. No need to wait for a responsible adult to be present. ‘And are you a student? Or working?’

‘Student. Catering college.’ She looked a little brighter. ‘I’m in my last year.’

‘Do you want to be a chef when you’re finished?’

She shrugged, looking baffled. ‘Dunno.’

Enough friendliness. Back to the reason for talking to her in the first place.

‘I’d like to talk to you about what happened earlier. We have a few questions, and then we’ll let you go home.’

She rolled her eyes and said nothing.

‘Firstly, I’d just like to reassure you that you aren’t in any kind of trouble. We’re interviewing you as a witness, not a suspect, so please don’t feel that you need to watch what you say. We just want to know what happened before you – er, escaped.’ Somehow, ‘escaped’ sounded better than ‘stabbed a man in the stomach several times’.

She stirred. ‘Is he dead, then?’

‘No. He’s in intensive care. But he’s alive.’

‘Sorry to hear that.’ She lifted her chin defiantly, and I thought she was hoping to see shock in my eyes. If so, she was disappointed.