The blood drained from his face and the pupils in his burning blue eyes became pinpoints of darkness. He shook his head for a long time before he spoke. ‘From the first instant I met Kevin, I knew he was evil. I don’t say that lightly. In fact, until I met him, I didn’t think such a thing really existed. It’s the cop-out of newspapers and stupid people who can’t properly think things through.’

He breathed deeply, staring straight ahead at an unknown point. In the heavy silence, he ran the photograph of Alan Pearson, the third victim, through his fingertips, and he seemed to draw strength from it. ‘People are always fascinated by murders. It makes their normal problems seem diminished.’ He looked me straight in the eye. ‘But when a child kills, it threatens the fabric of society…what have we become if a child is capable of torturing and killing another child? When I knew that we were looking for children twenty years ago, I wrote reports, hypothesized about what they might be. I was right to some extent, but there was something else–something about Kevin Milne that wasn’t in any book or lecture.’

He stared down at the photograph of Alan Pearson.

‘We cannot accept that some people are just born bad…of course, it’s easy to say an abused child becomes an abuser, but I can assure you that the vast majority of abused children go on to be good people.’

Cornwell was hiding something. I wasn’t in court so I broke the golden rule. I asked a question to which I did not know the answer.

‘What did Kevin Milne have over you?’ I asked. He gripped the corners of the photograph so tightly it bent in the middle. ‘Kevin was very good at a lot of things. One of them was finding out secrets.’

He fell into silence and I couldn’t allow that. ‘If you don’t tell us everything, I will insist DI Bancho charges you with assault,’ I told him.

Cornwell looked into my eyes. His gaze was dark and I saw he was in a place where no threat I made could hurt him. A tinge of shame came over me. Cornwell started to speak. It was like rapid gunfire; now he had opened up, nothing could stop him, the deep creases on his forehead eased, even his breathing seemed less laboured. ‘After the initial trial,’ he said slowly, ‘Renee and Kevin were sentenced to twenty-five years. Once the lynching mob mentality died down, there was a back-swing. Some lawyers argued the children had been unfairly treated. They took a case to the European Court of Human Rights. They were awarded compensation, but their sentences remained intact.’

‘What was your recommendation?’ I asked.