‘Grim one at the moment. Three kids, all under four, kidnapped in the last month from houses in the Teddington area. One found dead in a traveller camp, no sign of the other two. Only one lead so far, that woman called Denise Breem who was implicated in the Caspar Doyle case but nothing ever pinned on her. But she seems to have a solid alibi.’

Gill made a face. ‘I wondered if you might be involved in that – I read about it. We’re allowed a newspaper sometimes, and the odd bit of supervised internet access, if we’re very good . . . The Child Catcher. I remember Breem from that case. Trafficking ring, do you think?’

‘Could be. We know that at least one of the kids was taken by a woman.’

At that moment in the corridor outside they both heard a terrible screaming and wailing. The door burst open, an alarm went off, and a young, emaciated woman with a half-unravelled knitted sweater in pink wool and bandages on both wrists literally ricocheted off the doorframe into the room, like a human pinball, trailing a long pink wool thread behind her. She headed straight for Gill, shouting at the top of her lungs:

‘YOUBITCHI’LLKILLYOUYOUTOOKMYFAGSAGAINIKNOWYOUDID . . .’

Gill and Pat leaped up and Pat grabbed the woman in an armlock as two security guards ran in and took over, frogmarching her out again. The alarm was silenced. ‘Shit,’ Pat said, feeling shaken. ‘Does that happen often?’

‘All the time,’ Gill’s voice was calm. ‘Usually with her. She hates me. She thinks I nick her stuff. I don’t. I mean, I don’t even smoke.’

Pat just stared at her. ‘It’s awful in here, isn’t it,’ he said flatly.

‘Yeah.’ Gill didn’t meet his eye, but gazed at the horrible print on the wall behind his head, a bucolic scene of lavender fields he’d noticed on his way in, thinking how inappropriate a picture it was for people who were so confined. If he had to look at badly executed paintings of lavender every day when the closest he ever got to it was a plug-in air freshener, he was sure that it would drive him even more insane.

‘There are loads like her. They’re always trying to kill themselves.’

Pat was glad that she had said ‘they’ instead of ‘we’.