Second newspaper item: a woman complaining of a peeper in her back garden. When police were called, they found marks on her kitchen door, clumsy attempts at entering. Maybe connected to the first story, maybe not. Story one: eight weeks before the first murder. Story two: a further four weeks back. A pattern of months establishing itself. And another pattern on top of the first: peeper becoming attacker. Of course, there could be other stories he’d missed, ones from other cities, making for different theories, but Bible John was happy to go with Aberdeen. First victim: often the first victim was local. Once the killer’s confidence was up, he would range further afield. But that first success was so very important.

A timid knock at the study door. ‘I’ve made coffee.’

‘I’ll be out soon.’

Back to his computer. He knew the police would be busy compiling their own composites, their psychological profiles, remembered the one a psychiatrist had compiled of him. You knew he was ‘an authority’ because of all the letters after his name: BSc, BL, MA, MB, ChB, LLB, DPA, FRCPath. Meaningless in the wider scheme, as was his report. Bible John had read it in a book years back. The few things about him it got right, he attempted to remedy. The serial murderer was supposedly withdrawn, with few close friends, so he had forced himself to become gregarious. The type was known for a lack of drive and fear of adult contacts, so he took a job where drive and contacts were crucial. As for the rest of the thesis … rubbish, mostly.

Serial killers not infrequently had a history of homosexual activity – not guilty.

They were usually unmarried – tell that to the Yorkshire Ripper.

They often heard two voices inside their heads, one good and the other evil. They collected weapons, and gave them pet names. Many dressed up in women’s clothes. Some showed an interest in black magic or in monsters, and collected sadistic pornography. Many had a ‘private place’ where objects such as hoods, dolls and rubber diving-suits would be kept.

He looked around his study and shook his head.

There were only a few points where the psychiatrist got it right. Yes, he would say he was egocentric – like half the population. Yes, he was neat and tidy. Yes, he had an interest in the Second World War (but not solely Nazism or concentration camps). Yes, he was a plausible liar – or rather, people were gullible listeners. And yes, he planned his culls well in advance, as it appeared the Upstart was now doing.

The librarian had not yet finished compiling his newspaper list. A check of requests for Bible John literature had drawn a blank. That was the bad news. But there was good news too. Thanks to the recent upsurge of interest in the original Bible John case, he had newspaper details of other unsolved murders, seven of them. Five took place in 1977, one in ’78, and one much more recently. These gave him a second thesis. The first had the Upstart just beginning his career; the second had him recommencing it after a long gap. He might have been out of the country, or in some institution, or even in a relationship where he did not feel it necessary to kill. If the police were being meticulous – which he doubted – they’d be looking at recent divorces of men who had married in ’78 or ’79. Bible John did not have the means at his disposal to do this, which was frustrating. He got up and stared at his shelves of books, not really seeing them. There was an opinion that the Upstart was Bible John, that the eyewitness descriptions were flawed. As a result, the police and the media had dusted off their photofits and artists’ impressions.