Then he was moving too, sliding down the sand, the frozen grains like sandpaper against the skin of his wrists and ankles, trying to keep below the line of the horizon and not make too much noise, because perhaps this time Vera herself might need saving. Even for her, two killers might be too much to tackle.

On the flat, hard sand he stopped and watched. The moon made a path across the water and over the wet ridged shore. Three figures in conversation. Malcolm Kerr, hunched and broken. Vera Stanhope, triumphant. And Ryan Dewar, the teenage boy who had killed two women and had threatened Joe’s daughter. Kerr had his arm around the boy’s throat. As Joe watched, Kerr shoved the boy towards Vera and raised his hands in grateful surrender.

Early Christmas Eve and they were in the police station in Kimmerston. Vera and Joe were preparing to interview Malcolm Kerr. They’d leave Ryan until later, once his mother and the lawyer had arrived. Thinking about what Kate Dewar must be thinking, Joe felt sick and sad. Malcolm Kerr had brought his daughter to safety. Kate was another grieving parent, but for her there would be no happy ending, no happy families.

Now Vera was in her element, part mother superior and part Mystic Meg, reading the past like a mind-reader. There was a plate of bacon sandwiches on the table between them. God knows where she’d found them at this time of the morning. He could smell the bacon and the coffee and, when he replayed the scene later, describing it to colleagues as an example of Vera working her bloody miracles, it was the smell that remained with him. They’d offered Malcolm a solicitor, but he’d just shaken his head. ‘No need for that.’ Joe thought he was glad that it had ended like this. Prison wouldn’t seem so bad after the soulless house in Percy Street.

‘Ricky Butt,’ Vera said. ‘A horrible young toerag.’

‘Ricky was a psychopath,’ Malcolm said. Joe might just as well not have been in the room. All the prisoner’s answers were directed at the inspector. Joe was back in his role of observer – Vera’s second pair of eyes. ‘He liked hurting people. Dealt heroin. Dealt women. We weren’t angels in Harbour Street, but we weren’t used to that. Not his mother’s fault. Val was a bit rough, but her heart was in the right place.’

‘And he was making life difficult for Margaret?’