Chandler sat at Tanya’s desk and tried to clear his head. He had two people, each claiming to have been attacked by the other. One he had locked up, and one he had let go. Who was telling the truth? Who did he think was telling the truth? The one who had entered voluntarily or the one presented at the business end of a shotgun? He would start by questioning the one he had.

‘Will I call HQ?’ Nick’s enthusiastic voice interrupted his thoughts.

‘Let me think.’

‘We might have a serial killer, Sarge.’ Nick’s voice was riddled with excitement.

Luka stepped into the main office from the cells in back.

‘He all locked up?’ asked Chandler.

‘He is,’ replied Luka, grabbing a tin of Coke from the fridge. Chandler felt like the temperature in the station had cranked up a notch, impossible as it seemed in this scorching heat. ‘You might want to stop young Nick’s imagination getting carried away, though.’

Chandler agreed. It was his job to keep a lid on the emotions, even if he was struggling to deal with his own. ‘We don’t know what we’re dealing with. It might just be a dispute between friends that’s got out of hand. We’ll get some facts before we call HQ. We all need to stay calm.’

It was a mantra Chandler repeated to himself as he stood outside the interview room trying to calm his nerves. Inside was a man who had murdered fifty-four people. Or a kid who’d had an argument with a friend and posed no more of a threat than the flies buzzing around the ceiling light. Heath had been left to stew for twenty minutes before he had been transferred from the cell to the arena.

In the twenty-minute gap Chandler had checked in with Jim who informed him that there was nothing to report on Gabriel, their witness and victim, now implicated as a possible suspect. He’d ordered Jim to continue his watch and call if anything changed. After the interview he’d bring Gabriel back in.

Chandler entered the interview room. Heath was sitting at the table, bound in handcuffs, Tanya standing guard at the back of the room. Heath’s eyes were firmly closed as Chandler sat down. He let him meditate for a moment, studying the man, both uneasy and excited over what he was about to uncover.

‘Mr Barwell, are you with us?’

The eyes opened and focused on Chandler. Where he had been expecting cold and calculating there was only weariness and a look that suggested he had been awake for an extended period of time – or that his brain was struggling to contain a terrible secret.

‘’Course I’m with you,’ spat Heath, raising the handcuffs. He might have been weary but he retained enough wit to bite back.

‘I need to ask you a few questions,’ said Chandler.