She came closer, leaning on the counter next to him so that she had to look up into his face. His cheeks and forehead were a little flushed, contrasting nicely with his hazel eyes – in this light, they almost looked green.

‘Come on. You must have thought about it?’

Outside, the wind picked up, throwing dry autumn leaves against the windows. Parker cleared his throat.

‘Well, a white male in his thirties, maybe. Has a job that allows him to move around, probably lives alone. If he does have a wife, she’ll know nothing about it. And he’ll be someone with a troubled background, just like Reave. Abusive or absent parents, most likely. Not everyone who is abused as a child grows up to be a serial killer, but almost all serial killers have experienced abuse.’

‘Is that like how not all bastards vote Tory, but all Tories are bastards?’

That surprised a laugh out of him. ‘I thought politics were off the table until at least the third date.’

‘Well you’re already at my place, so …’ Unhelpfully, memories of the trapped bird, of the note in the medicine cabinet, the scent of her mother’s perfume all rose up at once. Suddenly, Heather wanted Parker to stay – while he was here, the house felt safer, less bleak. Catching the killer seemed like a wild fantasy, something she had been using as a distraction; even understanding her mother seemed like an impossible task. And she was tired of feeling sad. It would be so good, she thought, to feel something else for a while. ‘I think technically that counts as the fourth or fifth date.’

She looked him in the eyes as she said it, hoping he would get the hint. He looked away, smiling, but made no move to step away from her.

‘Uh. I think the killer chooses his victims very carefully, maybe has them chosen well in advance, because he knows how to take them with the minimum of fuss. There has to be something that links them, but I can’t bloody see it. They’re all roughly the same age, thirty-four, thirty-five, that’s it.’

‘They’re all roughly the same age as me.’ She frowned.

‘Heather, we showed the photo you gave us to Fiona Graham’s parents.’

‘Oh.’ She rubbed a hand across her forehead, trying not to imagine Fiona Graham’s grief-stricken mother, sobbing over a picture of her daughter that she had never seen before. ‘They must be devastated.’