‘I was summoned to a meeting with Peter Gruskin. He was panicking about Margaret’s murder and how the publicity might reflect on the trust. He’s always looking for an excuse to shut us down. In the past it’s been about money. We’re operating on very tight margins here. Now he thinks he’s got a better reason.’ She paused. ‘But I won’t let that happen. For some women we’re the only place they can be safe. Later I met up with some friends in Jesmond. We went to the pub, had something to eat and too much to drink. What you do at this time of year, I suppose. I got the last Metro to Mardle and then a taxi home. Laurie was still up. She’s pretty sensible as long as you keep her away from cars, and she said everything had been fine.’

‘What do you make of Gruskin?’ Vera was on to her second biscuit and was already feeling more human. Hunger always made her crabby.

‘He’s not very comfortable around women, unless they know their place.’ Jane grinned again. ‘Fine if they’re cleaning the church or listening to his sermons with rapt attention. Otherwise, forget it. Only child with a doting mother and a clerical father who acted like God. Single-sex school where he was probably bullied.’ She paused. ‘Sometimes I wonder if some men become pricks because they’re bullied, or if they were bullied because they were pricks in the first place.’

Vera chuckled and thought this woman wasn’t so different from her after all. They were in the same business. Clearing unpleasantness from the streets so that respectable people could continue their daily lives in blissful ignorance.

‘I’m sorry,’ Jane said. ‘I shouldn’t be making light of this. Two women dead, and both with connections to the Haven. Are we looking for a man who doesn’t like women? I don’t mean Peter Gruskin – there are still lots like him around, and I don’t see violence as his thing – but someone with a deep, psychological hatred of single women.’

Vera didn’t answer immediately. She thought that this room was quite similar to her kitchen at home. Bigger of course and probably cleaner, but she felt at ease here. She had the sense that if she stayed here long enough, talking through the case with this woman, she might come to a conclusion. She wondered what her boss would make of that as a case-management strategy.

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Maybe that has something to do with it.’

In the office the phone rang, obviously amplified throughout the rest of the house because it sounded very loud. Jane got up to answer it. Vera took another biscuit, then on impulse a couple more, which she put in an evidence bag and into her pocket.