“Ocean View Avenue. Is that inhabited?”

“No, sir. Just walls.”

So no one could say we were putting the inhabitants in danger, by letting this thing go free through the night to find its own way to us. Even if Ocean View Avenue had been teeming with rosy families and unlocked doors, I wouldn’t have worried. This wasn’t a spree killer, blazing away at anything that came on his screen. No one mattered to this guy, no one existed, except the Spains.

Richie had moved over to his holdall, crouching low so he wouldn’t be silhouetted against the window-holes, and pulled out a folded piece of paper. He spread it on the floor in front of us, in a pale rectangle of moonlight: a map of the estate.

“Good,” I said. “Get onto Detective …” I clicked my fingers at Richie and pointed down at the Spains’ kitchen; he mouthed Oates. “Detective Oates. Let her know it looks like action stations. Tell her to make sure the doors are locked, the windows are locked and her gun is loaded. Then she needs to start moving stuff—papers, books, DVDs, I don’t care—from the front of the house to the kitchen, as visibly as possible. You two, fall back to the point where you first spotted this guy. If he chickens out and tries to head back past you, pick him up. Don’t ring me again unless it’s urgent. Otherwise, we’ll let you know if anything happens.”

I pocketed my phone. Richie brought a finger down on the map: Ocean View Avenue, up in the northwest corner of the estate. “Here,” he said, very quietly, just a murmur under the powerful murmur of the sea. “If he’s heading for us, and he’s sticking to the empty streets and going over walls for shortcuts, it’ll take him ten, maybe fifteen minutes.”

“Sounds about right. I don’t see him coming straight here: he’s got to be worried that we’ve found this place. He’ll have a nose around first, decide whether he’s going to risk coming up here: look for cops, for unfamiliar cars, see if there’s any activity … Let’s say twenty-five minutes, all told.”

Richie glanced up at me. “If he decides it’s too risky, does a legger, then it’s the floaters who get to pick him up. Not us.”

“Fine with me. Unless he comes up here, he’s just some guy out for a night walk in the middle of nowhere. We can find out who he is and have a nice chat with him, but unless he’s stupid enough to wear the bloody trainers or come out with a full confession, we won’t be able to hold him. And I’m happy to let someone else be the guy who picks him up and has to throw him back a few hours later. We don’t want him feeling like he’s got one up on you and me.” What we would do if he ran didn’t matter: I knew he was coming to us, knew as surely as if I could smell him, a sharp hot musk steaming off the rooftops and rubble, curling closer. Since the moment I had seen that lair, I had known he would come back to it. Sooner or later, an animal on the run runs for home.