Jo had overheard enough shouting the day before to know that Homicide at Glendale were on an LASD shitlist: two of the Stalker murders on 20 July had happened inside the city’s thirty-square-mile boundaries, at a house close to the Ventura Freeway, and – a week and a half on – the task force believed detectives over there were still withholding important information they’d gathered at the scene because they wanted to make headlines for themselves. Jo didn’t know if those suspicions were correct or not. She only knew that the LASD was supposed to be acting as the lead agency because of the chronology and location of the initial murders, that cops were territorial, in the same way as they could be intractable, driven, disingenuous and entirely self-serving, and that the frenzied hunt for the Stalker had brought out the worst in a number of them.

She wheeled herself in under her table and opened the top drawer of her desk. Inside was a Walkman. She put the headphones on and pressed Play, not caring what tape she’d left in last time, just wanting to tune out the sound of the detective, who was now threatening to drive to Glendale and get someone fired. The irony wasn’t lost on Jo. She’d had to watch more resources being poured into the Night Stalker, and more attention directed his way, than any case she’d ever orbited in seven years as a detective. But all that extra money and manpower hadn’t acted as a glue. If anything, it had turned the city on itself.

She took her investigation into the motel killing and the xeroxed copy of Ray Callson’s murder book out of her tray and placed them on her desk. In her ears, Marvin Gaye was singing like an angel.

She started going through the suicide first, leafing through photos she’d already seen of Donald Klein’s body, his skin marbled, his eyes glazed, the top of his skull missing. The day after she’d met him, Ray Callson had mailed over the full forensic report, and she’d since got one hundred per cent confirmation that the bullet Klein used to kill himself with came from the same gun used to murder ‘Gabriel Wilzon’ before he was dumped in the tub. On a scrap of paper in the same envelope, Callson had written down numbers for both his pager and his house, and had told Jo to call him any time she needed. She’d tried to do so once, to clarify something minor, but Callson had never picked up, so she’d left a message on his machine.

She was still waiting for a callback five days later.

She pictured the man she’d met the Wednesday before up on the slopes of the park. He’d been tired, grieving, in pain. He’d told Jo his wife only had a few days left.

Maybe those days were over already.