‘To kill any DNA he’s left behind,’ Sarah observed.

‘Exactly,’ Levy replied, impressed that Sarah knew how effective simple bleach was as a crime-scene sanitiser. Most did not. ‘And a spree killer doesn’t do that. But someone who wants to kill again? They do. And that’s terrifying when he’s killing at this rate.’

‘Shit.’ Sarah sat backwards on the bench. The thought made her exhale deeply.

‘Exactly right,’ Levy replied, her own ramrod straight bearing unchanged.

The two women fell silent. Levy gave Sarah a moment to digest the details. It was the first time Sarah had heard it, Levy knew, because it was the first time Levy had said it out loud. She was taking a risk sharing so much with a reporter, she knew that. But she considered herself a good judge of character and she felt Sarah was worth trusting. And in any event, without Sarah’s earlier tip off, it might have taken days for her and her team to be told about this latest murder.

Finally Sarah broke the silence.

‘Whoever this bastard is, he’s a different breed.’

Sarah reached into her handbag as she spoke. Peeling the wrapper from an unopened pack of cigarettes she had bought inside, she took one for herself before offering the open pack to Levy.

‘Do you smoke?’

‘Once,’ Levy replied. ‘I gave up years ago.’

‘So did I.’ Sarah lit the cigarette. ‘But sometimes, you know?’

‘Yeah, I know.’

Sarah inhaled deeply, taking a moment to ride the nicotine hit. Levy looked on. She could remember the same feeling; could understand an ex-smoker lapsing in moments of stress. It was not something she could allow of herself. Not when stress was such a constant in her life.

‘What about suspects?’ Sarah asked. ‘Have you got any leads at all?’

‘We’ve got lines of enquiry. I’d be lying if I called them leads.’

‘Longman’s past cases, right? I mean, Longman must have been the target of a lot of grudges from his time on the bench. So I guess you must have started trawling through his case files, looking for someone who might be capable of this sort of violence.’

‘Sounds like you should be working for me.’ Levy smiled. Took a sip of her drink. ‘But yes, that’s exactly what we’re doing. Or at least it’s what we were doing. Problem is the man’s caseload was huge. Even after we’d used a bunch of filters to whittle them down.’

‘Surely that will have changed now, though? With Blunt’s death?’

‘That depends,’ said Levy. ‘If they were targeted because of a connection then that narrows down the case files we have to shift through.’

‘Because it must relate to a case where Blunt was the lawyer,’ Sarah suggested. ‘Which massively cuts down which files are potentials, right?’

‘Right,’ Levy confirmed. ‘But the problem is, Blunt’s death also raises the possibility that this is just a maniac targeting lawyers. Or retired lawyers. However unlikely that is – and trust me, I know it’s bordering on the absurd – if it somehow turns out to be true then this just got a whole lot harder. Because if this is all random, then studying Longman’s cases won’t help at all.’