Nikki looked up, saw a semi-circle of jeering faces looking down at them, and her heart sank. The masks had been thrown to the ground, all except the main man, who was carefully peeling his over his head. If they didn’t care about being identified, then they were certainly going to kill her. So, nothing mattered, did it? Nikki swiftly turned Joseph on to his side, checked his airway, then placed herself between him and the gang. If there were to be a chance for one of them, it had to be him.

She looked up at them defiantly, then saw the uncovered face of the ringleader, and her defiance turned to revulsion. The rat death mask had almost been an improvement on his own distorted features. One side of his head had no hair, the ear looked as if it had been melted into something that resembled tiny cauliflower florets, and his right cheek, temple and jaw were a mass of puckered scar tissue. But the other side was just as it always had been, and she recognized Stephen Cox immediately.

‘I see you haven’t forgotten me, Inspector.’ His twisted face smiled vindictively. ‘And you’ll know that I have debts to settle.’ He squatted down on his haunches beside her. ‘You made my life hell, DI Galena. If you hadn’t driven me away from Greenborough, I’d never look like this!’ He pointed to his ravaged face.

Nikki still had her hand on Joseph’s pulse, and it was becoming erratic. She had to do something but she had no idea what.

Desperation and anger welled up inside her, and in pure frustration she vented it all on Stephen Cox.

‘I don’t give a shit what’s happened to you! You are vermin! Filthy murdering vermin, and whatever you’ve suffered it wasn’t nearly bad enough, considering what you did to Emily Drennan. And where is Kerry Anderson? You do have her, don’t you? You fucking little shit-bag!’

‘Temper, temper.’ Cox stood up, glanced at his watch, then looked across at his thugs. ‘Fun as this is, we need to finish it.’

‘Seems such a shame to kill her, Stevie, It’d be far more painful for her go on living with this on her conscience …’ Frankie poked the toe of her shoe viciously into Joseph’s leg, ‘… as well as everything else in her sad little life.’

‘What the hell would you know about conscience? You’re born evil!’ exploded Nikki.

‘So they say.’ Frankie’s cold fishlike eyes never left hers, and she slowly removed the long wig and dropped it casually over Joseph’s body. ‘Poor Mr Policeman.’