Ben Cooper ran along the auctioneer’s walkway, distracted by the clanging gates and the movement of the cattle. He looked around, saw only rows of pens, inquisitive bovine faces, damp concrete and cold streaks of light from the broken roof. He could see no sign of Diane Fry. All he knew was that his slowness had put her in danger.

Outside, DI Hitchens would be organizing the troops as paramedics arrived to take over the task of battling for Todd Weenink’s life. But for Cooper, there was no time for waiting.

A market attendant saw Cooper and pointed towards a passageway between the sale rings. At the end of the passage, a pool of something dark and sticky was trickling across the concrete into the drainage channel.

At first, Diane Fry felt no pain, just a strange kind of exposed feeling to her face as the flesh parted under the knife and cold air struck the tissues underneath. As she backed away, the stinging pain started and the blood began to run down her face.

Maggie watched her. ‘That was your fault,’ she said. ‘Now you’ll be scarred, like me.’

Fry tried to wipe the blood away from her eye with her hand, but it trickled down her jawline and on to her neck. Mentally, she had been prepared for it. But physically, the sudden laying open of the skin still jolted her body, and caused a shock to the nervous system that twisted her stomach and drained the strength from her limbs.

Ben Cooper had reached the fatstock sale ring. He stopped at the end of the passageway, with the high steel bars of the ring between him and the two women.

‘Armed police!’ he shouted. ‘Drop the knife!’

Both the women turned towards him, startled. Then Cooper saw Fry fall as her leg gave way. She hit the concrete, and her baton dropped out of her hand, rolling under the seats at the edge of the ring.

Diane Fry could hear the panic in Cooper’s voice. Maggie looked towards Cooper and met his eye, defiant. It was then that Fry recognized something in Maggie’s face. It was the most dangerous look of all – the look of somebody whose life was already over. If you had lost everything that you ever cared about, it didn’t matter what else you did. It was all irrelevant. This was the way Maggie wanted it to go. She would not drop the knife – she wanted someone to shoot her.

‘Armed police! Drop the knife! Now!’

With a great effort, Fry hoisted herself up on her left hand and kicked Maggie’s feet from under her with her good leg. Their limbs tangled together, and they both went tumbling down the tiers of seats.