Doyle seemed completely caught off guard. Whatever she had expected Nikki to say, it hadn’t been that. Her eyes opened wider and her mouth dropped a little. ‘What?’

‘The bad drugs. You thought they’d kill her, right?’

‘Yeah.’ Doyle looked genuinely confused. ‘But what’s all this shit about hating you?’

Nikki stiffened, ‘So if I’m wrong about that, tell me why you hurt her?’

Doyle gave a humourless little laugh. ‘Because it wasn’t you, it was Hannah I hated.’

Nikki felt as if someone had kicked her legs from under her but she kept her face stonily impassive. Why on earth should she hate Hannah?

Doyle’s fear seemed to fade, and for a moment she looked quite pleased with herself. She had apparently never considered that the detective inspector may have been barking up the wrong tree for so long. ‘So, you thought I did it to get at you? Well, well!’

‘What did Hannah ever do to you?’ Nikki asked, trying to keep the immediacy from her voice.

‘What? I’ll tell you what! Day in, day out! Whine, whine, whine! My mother hates me! My father hates me! He’s gone to America and left me with her!’ Doyle’s eyes flared in anger as she imitated a petty, whinging voice. ‘Poor hard-done-by Hannah! Can you imagine what that does to someone who’s mother and father really hated her?’ She stared up at Nikki. ‘Look at my arms! Go one, Roll up my sleeve! Either one, they’re both the same!’

Although she didn’t want to do it, Nikki pulled up the sleeve of the woman’s silky blouse. The skin on the inside of her forearm was a grid of old welts. A criss-cross pattern of long, narrow, raised scars.

‘That ain’t self-harming either! That’s what real hate is, and there’s more! Some nice cigarette burns! Wanna see them too?’

In spite of her shock at seeing the woman’s horrific scars, Nikki managed to remain silent, but Doyle was still talking.

‘See, Inspector. You never hated Hannah. You loved her. You gave her everything she wanted, and tried to keep a proper home going, even though you had your poxy stinking job. And all your ungrateful daughter could do was plot and plan to get her own back on you!’ She screwed up her face in disgust. ‘Oh, don’t get me wrong, I couldn’t give a flying fuck about you! I’d just had enough of your miserable, bleating offspring, who didn’t know when she was bleeding well off.’

‘But you don’t kill someone for something like that!’

‘I do. If they piss me off enough.’

‘And my sergeant? How did he piss you off?‘

Doyle pouted. ‘He didn’t do anything except play the hero. What an arsehole!’