‘No, it’s a cremation. She asked for it in her will.’

He looked down, hiding his face, his big shoulders heaving as he struggled with something.

‘And her ashes?’

DI Parker stepped forward and pressed Heather’s shoulder, briefly, and she found herself ridiculously grateful for it.

‘You know very well that’s none of your business, Reave.’

The big man looked away from them. Heather was shocked to realize that he was genuinely upset, his strong features constricted with grief. ‘She would want to be somewhere out in the open, lass. Just remember that.’

Later, in the murky little prison canteen, Parker sat opposite Heather, frowning and fiddling with paperwork again. Both their beakers of tea stood untouched.

‘I’m not sure what good this is doing us. While it’s true that this is the most he’s ever said to anyone, including his array of shrinks, I’m not sure what the world’s creepiest episode of Jackanory is achieving.’

‘Have you thought about it? The possibility that he wasn’t the one actually doing the killings all those years ago?’

He sighed.

‘I don’t think that’s likely, no. He’s not the best example of a serial killer, you do realize that?’ When Heather looked at him blankly, Parker continued. ‘The vast majority of them are nasty idiots who got lucky for a while. Inadequate men with low IQs and messed-up sexual appetites. Sad little men who feel nothing unless they are dominating someone. A case like Michael Reave is extremely rare, and I don’t want you to get taken in by it.’

‘You mean, he’s unusual for a serial killer.’

Parker picked up his tea, and put it down again. ‘He’s articulate. Even charming. You can have a conversation with him and not feel your brain cells dying, which, believe me, is unusual for that group. He doesn’t look like a monster. But,’ he cleared his throat, ‘aside from the van and the evidence in it, he was living an itinerant lifestyle at the time, travelling around a lot, and he has no real alibis for any of the murders. His mother disappeared when he was a kid, did you know that?’

‘Are you suggesting he killed her too?’

Parker shrugged. ‘Maybe she just left, but we have every reason to believe it was an unhappy, abusive home.’

‘That proves nothing.’

‘True. The hairs and the location of the van are what prove it.’

‘I’m not arguing with you,’ said Heather. Her face was growing hot, and she felt angry. Parker was suggesting she had been taken in by Reave, like those bizarre women who wrote letters to convicted killers and ended up marrying them. She thought of her mother, and she felt cold. ‘Ben, you have someone out there right now who seems to know an awful lot about the Red Wolf case. Who seems to know too much.’