I glanced at him and nodded resignedly. ‘It’s the mark of Cain. If I don’t get Joe back safe, you’ll certainly have no doubt about my fucking impulses.’

Graham Marshall was backed up in the dock. The medics had refused to allow the police to interfere in the scene until they had stabilized Donna Cook. He watched me approach with an undisguised look of hatred in his eyes. I pretended not to notice. I stared straight ahead of me through the mass of armed police officers and, as I bent down over Donna Cook, he turned away.

‘Give me five minutes,’ I said to Bancho. He in turn sought permission from the police doctor, whose nod was faint but enough for me. My knee cracked like another gunshot as I knelt down beside the dying woman. Other people have lived with more severe injuries, but this one had no will to carry on. Her desire for life had been lying rotting in a cold grave in Edmonton Green cemetery for twenty years.

I held her hand.

‘Stay with me, Brodie,’ she whispered. It was a request. Time slowed down and people melted into the background. ‘I just want to go to sleep,’ she said. Her fingers were cold and damp, the life seeping out of them.

‘You can’t,’ I said. ‘You can’t go to sleep until you tell me where Joe and Sam are. Do it, Donna. Save something out of all this.’ I stroked her hair. It clung to her pale forehead; her breathing was shallow and so light I wondered how she was hanging on.

‘I didn’t mean it to turn out like this,’ she said, her eyelids flickering. ‘He had to be punished and death was too easy. He had to be marked. People needed to know who he was; he needed to be abused in the street, killed like an animal for his atrocity–he needed to suffer.’

‘Breathe, Donna,’ I commanded. ‘Where is my Joe?’ I begged. ‘Tell me now. I don’t know if you believe in God, but now’s not the time to take chances. Tell me where they are, Joe and Sam, and you can sleep easier.’ The spark of life was fading from her eyes. She coughed and blood flowed from the corner of her lips, dribbling down her chin. I rubbed her hand, willing life back into her, but the tears streaming down my face were for Joe, not Donna Cook. She coughed again, spattering my face with droplets of ruby red. ‘Please,’ I whispered, elongating the word as my desperation grew. Just as her eyelids began to close, before they shut completely her eyes flickered onto her handbag.