She went to him and knelt down next to Keira. The initial search was for evidence, weapons, a life-extinct verdict and a general feel for the layout, but now, having examined the body before it was bagged properly and sent to the mortuary, the medic had confirmed over a dozen wounds, consistent with what the police called overkill – or pure rage. That type of crime was almost always committed by somebody known to the victim: the complete opposite of the Ella Watson MO.

Chapter 12

The brothers swaggered towards the corner shop with a self-assured dominance. They flicked hand signals as they chatted and kept their hoods up. An elderly woman came out of the store and stared at them. She was at least a foot shorter than both men and her shoulders hunched over from years of gravity. She clutched two shopping bags closer to her.

‘What’s up, love?’ Jason Cotton asked her. He opened his arms and stood in front of her. The woman tutted, and scuttled around him and away.

‘Suck my dick!’ Adam Cotton shouted after her. She picked up her pace. The two men laughed and performed some kind of fist ritual in self-congratulation.

When they went inside the shop, the proprietor looked up from his crossword and froze. It was that time of the month again, when the Cotton brothers wanted paying, but he’d never seen them so early in the morning. They looked high on something, and as if they’d been up all night. He’d toyed with calling the police, and he’d spoken to his wife about hiring his own thugs, but there was no getting around the fact that the brothers controlled the estate. His only option was to sell up, but no one in their right mind would buy. It galled him to the core that these two young men, who should be earning an honest wage from a legitimate day’s work, exercised so much power. The tabloids had started reporting from estates where even the police wouldn’t go: Beacon was one of them. He never saw patrol cars any more. The place was a lawless enclave of illicit trades and delinquency, and the authorities had neither the resources nor the inclination to care.

He didn’t say a word as they helped themselves to crisps and bottles of fizzy drinks. They came to the counter and Jason, the elder of the two, leant over it.

‘Get us two hundred fags.’

The man did as he was told. His profits were dwindling before his very eyes and he was being bullied into submission by a pair of children. His blood boiled.

‘And the rest?’

He knew they meant money. He gave them five hundred pounds every month and it hurt his accounts keenly. He reached under the counter for the envelope, then stopped.

‘What’s up, old man?’