Sharon Fredericks backed up to the edge of the balcony then stopped, looking behind her then down at the street, a dazed expression on her face. Liam McConnell wailed, and she picked him up, holding him fiercely. It was then that Patrick spotted the huge knife in Sharon’s free hand. His heart sank. They were both wielding dangerous weapons, the pair of nutters. And where was Frankie? In the room Sharon had just come out of? Patrick had a terrible feeling that she was going to hurt Liam, then go back to get Frankie. Or worse, that somehow it had been Frankie on the receiving end of the bullet they’d just heard fired.

Patrick became aware that the voice on the phone still held to his ear had gone silent. ‘What’s going on? Koppler? Are you still there?’

He thought he heard a reply, but in the heat of the moment couldn’t tell for sure.

The knife glinted in the sunlight as Sharon raised it above her head, a deranged High Priestess on her second-floor sacrificial altar. Suzanne, Carmella, Mike and Fraser approached the house and stood beneath the balcony, calling up to Sharon, imploring her not to do anything stupid.

‘Here, you talk to him.’ Patrick shoved the phone back at Fraser and legged it after the armed police, pushing aside the swinging bashed-in front door. He heard Suzanne call his name but ignored her. He heard barked orders from upstairs, an officer demanding that a door be opened, then a crashing sound, splintering wood, a yell – and more gunshots. Patrick ran up the first flight of stairs and pushed past the half-a-dozen armed police who filled the hallway. At the end of the hallway, an office door had been kicked in. On the floor inside the office, Koppler lay on his back, his shirt blooming red across the chest, a trickle of blood tracing a line from the corner of his mouth to his ear.

‘Shit!’ At least it wasn’t Frankie.

He heard men’s voices and a child’s scream from the next floor, where Sharon was, threw himself back down the hallway and up the second flight of stairs.

Four armed officers stood in what was presumably the master bedroom. French doors were wide open, revealing the balcony, curtains undulating in the breeze. One of the officers was ordering Sharon to put down the knife she was still holding, but now her hands were shaking so much that she could barely hold either the knife or the child in her arms.

Patrick raced to the French doors, ignoring the protests of the black-clad officers. ‘Sharon,’ he said. ‘My name’s Patrick. I’ve come to help you.’

She turned her head towards him. Her face was twisted with confusion, pink and wet with tears and snot. Her expression reminded Patrick of a documentary he’d seen in which a cow was led into a slaughterhouse.

‘Where’s Samuel?’ she demanded.