The squad room was quiet, just the two guys on call looking up from their coffees as we passed the door, to see who had been out night-hunting and was bringing something home. We put our man in the interview room. Richie undid the cuffs and I talked the guy through the rights sheet, in a bored drone like this was just meaningless paperwork. The word “solicitor” got a violent shake of his head; when I put the pen in his hand, he signed without a single question. The signature was a jerky squiggle that gave away nothing but an initial C. I picked up the sheet and left.

We watched him from the observation room, through the one-way glass. It was the first time I had had a proper look at him. Short-cropped brown hair, high cheekbones, a jutting chin with a couple of days’ worth of reddish stubble; he was wearing a black duffle coat that had seen plenty of use, a heavy roll-neck gray jumper and faded jeans, all dressed up for a night’s stalking. He had on hiking boots: the runners were gone. He was older than I had thought, and taller—late twenties, and not far off six foot—but he was so thin that he looked like the last stages of a hunger strike. It was the thinness that had minimized him into something younger, smaller, harmless. That illusion could have got him in the Spains’ door.

No cuts or bruises that I could see, but anything could be hidden under all those clothes. I turned the interview-room thermostat up higher.

It felt good, seeing him in that room. Most of our interview rooms could do with a shower, a shave and a full makeover, but I love every inch of them. Our territory fights on our side. In Broken Harbor he had been a shadow that moved through walls, an iodine scent of blood and seawater, with shards of moonlight stuck in his eyes. Now he was just a guy. They all are, once you get them between those four walls.

He sat hunched rigidly in the uncomfortable chair, staring down at his fists on the table like he was bracing himself for torture. He hadn’t even glanced around the room—linoleum pocked with old cigarette burns and lumps of chewing gum, walls scored with graffiti, bolted-down table and filing cabinet, the video camera’s dull red light watching him from a high corner—to get his bearings. I said, “What do we know about him?”

Richie was watching so intently that his nose was practically touching the glass. “He’s not on anything. At first I was thinking he could be on the gear, ’cause he’s so skinny, but no.”

“Not right now, anyway. That’s good for us: if we get anything, we don’t want him saying it was the drugs talking. What else?”

“Loner. Nocturnal.”

“Right. Everything says he’s more comfortable keeping his distance from other people, rather than making close contact—he got his kicks by watching, broke in when the Spains were out rather than when they were asleep. So when it comes time to push him, we want to get in close, get in his face, both of us at once. And since he’s nocturnal, we want the push to come towards dawn, when he’s starting to fade. Anything else?”