‘There are still things that don’t add up.’ It was Levy who spoke first. ‘Longman’s sentence. Life but with a relatively short minimum. You said Longman probably thought it was safe, as once a guy as violent as Hirst was inside he’d likely behave so badly that he’d never come out.’

‘That’s right.’

‘But he didn’t, did he? Which was one of the reasons we had him low on our list of potential suspects. Why others took priority. Hirst got parole on the first application because he had been an exemplary prisoner. He did not have a single act of insubordination on his prison record. Not a single act of violence. He was seen as the picture of rehabilitation. How does that fit with what we’re now seeing?’

‘I can’t answer that,’ Michael replied. ‘Because it makes no sense to me at all. The whole parole thing is messed up. I made arrangements to be told immediately if Hirst achieved parole. If he was even close to being released. That’s why I thought he was still inside. Yet somehow he’s been out for three years.’

Levy opened her mouth to speak. Sarah beat her to it.

‘Actually there’s even more to it than that.’

Both Michael and Levy turned to look at her in surprise.

‘I had Hirst’s full prison record looked into today,’ Sarah explained. ‘Through a source. And just before Michael called me about Derek, I got hold of his Parole Board report.’

‘Parole Board reports are strictly confidential,’ Levy interrupted. ‘What source did that come from?’

‘Does that really matter right now?’ Sarah sounded exasperated at the interruption. Levy conceded the point and indicated for Sarah to continue. ‘My source mentioned some mistreatment of Hirst while he was in Wandsworth Prison. It appeared nowhere on his record, but the Parole Board report filled in the blanks.’

‘What sort of mistreatment?’

‘The stuff the prison service pretends doesn’t happen. Hirst spent a few years as a target to a particular group. A particular guy, really. Just what you’d expect. Beatings. Abuse. Physical. And they suspected sometimes sexual.’

‘Horse shit.’ Michael had heard enough. ‘Karl Hirst never took abuse or punishment from anyone in his entire life. There is no way he was anyone’s victim inside.’

‘He was, Michael. The report was pretty explicit. Nothing was done because Hirst never complained, but there was a suspicion that it was also ignored because the guy responsible had most of the guards in Wandsworth Prison in his pocket. It was one of the reasons Hirst got parole on the first attempt; to avoid any investigation that would have exposed that corruption within the prison.’

‘Then that report’s wrong,’ Michael argued. ‘That man would fight to the death before he’d allow anyone to dominate him. It’s just the way he’s wired. They’d have to kill Hirst before they could do anything like that to him.’

‘Unless there was something else driving him.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It means I’ve been thinking,’ Sarah explained, ‘and there is one explanation for why Hirst would let that happen to him. Maybe Hirst was so obsessed with getting out in time to have his revenge – that maybe he was so focused on getting to Longman and Derek, to you – that he let it happen. Perhaps he knew that if he fought back, if he hurt them, then he’d never get out. So maybe, to allow him to get to you all, he allowed some bad things to happen to him.’