‘I’m sorry. I can only apologise if it wasn’t handled well at the time. I’ll chase it, I promise.’

‘She also told me that Kirk wasn’t booked at the hotel under his own name.’

‘Did she tell you the name?’

Chapter 42

Kelly caught a cab from Reading station and grew more anxious as the minutes ticked past. Traffic flowed freely through Bracknell. Her stomach knotted and twisted, making her feel queasy and her hands clammy. She’d gone over what she would say to Amy Richmond, but she knew that whatever happened it would be virtually impossible to control the outcome. The best approach would be to allow the psychopath to lead, to calm her ego and, along the way, squeeze as much information as possible from the interview. She remembered what Demi told her.

‘It’s a game.’

She just needed to hold her nerve.

The Teacher’s crimes were sordid, depraved and alongside some of the worst anyone had seen. Every now and again, a serial killer comes along who defies all logic and learning on human behaviour. Their brains are so damaged by twisted and degenerate perversion, that they inflict harrowing injury with impunity.

Perfect for understanding her Lake District ritual killings.

HQ, in granting her permission to interview the patient, had agreed with the emerging theory that some sort of formal rites were involved. In that, she argued, the perpetrator was trying to communicate with them just as The Teacher had. The symbolic evidence was indisputable and HQ accepted that the crimes were linked. They had another serial killer.

This time, though, Kelly did not want a private audience with said nutter, as she’d had, against her will, with The Teacher; she just wanted to nail him, or her. She switched her phone to silent and gave her ID to the man on the gate.

We became friends.

The vast arrangement of buildings nestled between some of the most expensive real estate in the country, and was a stone’s throw away from the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, where future war glitterati gained their commissions from Her Majesty, the Queen.

The irony. Legal and illegal mass murder…

Kelly felt frustration at the pressures on the modern force. Too many killers went free. But wading into politics didn’t get police work done.

It was a beautiful day, and in Berkshire, the temperature was around ten degrees higher than the Lake District. The hospital was shrouded in trees, and the only way anyone would know it was there was the practice alarm at eleven a.m. every day. It was Britain’s maximum security hospital for the worst offenders and psychos to ever have taken a breath.

The cab drove through the gates and up a long winding driveway, towards another series of metal gates.

‘Visiting family, love?’ The cabbie was prying.

‘No. Work related.’

‘Christ, you work with this lot? Good luck.’

‘Thanks.’