‘He’s downstairs. Everything’s OK, Sharon. We’re your friends.’

She sobbed.

‘Put Liam down and come back inside. No one is going to hurt you. I promise.’

‘Don’t lie to me,’ she screamed. ‘They shot Samuel. I heard it.’

‘No, he’s fine. Just put . . . the boy down and let’s talk.’

She shook her head vehemently. ‘I’m not going back to that place, that hospital. I don’t want to be locked up. I don’t want them to pump me full of drugs again, make me feel like I’m evil. I’m not evil.’

‘I know you’re not, Sharon.’

Her voice was choked. ‘I’m a good mum. I was always a good mum.’

‘I’m sure . . .’

‘They’re not taking me back there.’

And in one fluid movement, she turned and spread her arms wide so that there was distance between the knife and the crying child. He was sure that she was just planning to put Liam down on the balcony – but one of the marksmen inside the room clearly thought otherwise, as another shot was fired from inside the room, whizzing past his sleeve. Sharon’s body jerked backwards, a look of surprise on her face, and Liam was suddenly in mid-air. Patrick lunged forwards and caught him before he hit the floor of the balcony. In one swift movement he handed the shocked boy to one of the armed police. ‘Get him out of here.’

Hardy entered the room. ‘Nice work, detective,’ he said, clapping slowly as they both surveyed the splayed body of Sharon Fredericks, the hole in her belly pumping red. Patrick rubbed his hands together in a washing motion, trying to wipe the blood splatters off them. His head pounded afresh and he had to swallow hard to prevent himself vomiting.

‘Shut up,’ he managed. ‘Get the paramedics up here, now. Where’s the other kid? Frankie?’

‘There’s no sign of her.’

‘What do you mean?’

Patrick turned and pushed past Hardy, ignoring his throbbing head and churning stomach. He raced from room to room, looking under beds, in closets and wardrobes. He pulled open the attic door and poked his head inside, and half-fell down the stairs in his haste to find Frankie. As he ran around he noticed that smell again, the one that had been on Isabel’s clothes and in Koppler’s office.

Opening one door, he found Koppler’s body, zipped into a body bag, momentarily abandoned where the paramedics had rushed upstairs to see to Sharon. The mobile phone Koppler had been talking on to Patrick still lay where it had fallen when he’d been shot.

There was no sign of Frankie. In the room next to the dead man, Patrick found one bedroom that had clearly been occupied by a child: a single bed, Disney characters on the walls, stuffed toys, a pair of child’s pyjamas on the pillow.