The first stop was Percy Street. The curtains were drawn, so she assumed that she’d find Kerr in, but when she knocked on the door there was no response. An alley ran along the back of the houses, separated from the gardens by a wooden fence. The street light caught the frost on the overgrown grass and when she went in, there was ice on the concrete path. She banged on the kitchen door and again there was no response. When she tried the handle it was locked.

A man came out of the house next door. He wore an anorak and a Newcastle United knitted hat and matching black-and-white striped gloves. He was on his way to work and he regarded Vera with suspicion.

‘What do you want?’

‘You don’t happen to know where Malcolm is, do you, pet? Only I can’t get an answer.’ Her breath came as a cloud in the strange, white light.

He was in a hurry and now he had Vera down as someone official. ‘I haven’t seen him since yesterday morning.’ And he rushed away before she could ask anything more from him. She was tempted to try to get into the house. There’d probably be a spare key somewhere, under a flowerpot or the back doormat, but if Malcolm Kerr was inside sleeping off a hangover she’d be caught in the act of breaking in. Anyway something about the stillness of the house made her think it was empty, that Malcolm was probably at his yard. She imagined him there in his shed, wrapped in an old overcoat, dreaming of the love of his life. He’d have done anything for Margaret Krukowski and Vera thought now that the man could have killed Margaret’s husband, or at least helped her to dispose of his body. That was one of the theories she was working on, which had been spinning around in her brain all night. She wanted to get Kerr safely into custody, but without frightening him. The present murders could be the result of fear, she thought. Of a man trapped into a corner and fighting to save himself.