Again Moyra nodded and looked to Mr. Shrapnel. Tennison opened one of her files and brought out two photographs.

“On the sixteenth of May, nineteen seventy-one, you and Deirdre Mornay were on trial at Manchester Juvenile court.” She laid the photograph of Della on the table. Moyra did not react. “In early January of this year, Karen Howard was a customer at the booth in Covent Garden that you took over from Annette Frisby.” Karen’s photo was put in front of Moyra. Again she did not react.

Two more photographs; this time of the bodies of the murdered girls.

“Moyra, you are not looking at the photographs. If you don’t want to look at Della, then look at Karen. George called out to her, offered her a lift, then took her to King’s Cross and tortured her, mutilated her. But first, he hung her on the wall in chains and raped her. Look at it, Moyra, see her hands tied behind her back, the marks on her body . . . Look at her, Moyra!”

Shrapnel raised his hands as if to say, “That’s enough!”

“Your client, Mr. Shrapnel, stands to be accused as an accessory to murder. Don’t you think she should know what that crime involved?”

“My client has co-operated fully—”

Slowly, Moyra put out a hand and picked up the photos.

“Your client, Mr. Shrapnel, has systematically lied to us. Now she has a chance to—” Tennison stopped and watched Moyra’s reaction to the photographs; she stared at each one, then covered the one of Karen’s body with her hands and closed her eyes.

Shrapnel was saying, “Moyra is George Marlow’s common-law wife . . .”

Tennison raised a hand to quieten him as Moyra started to speak to her.

“Would you get the men to leave, just the women stay . . . I won’t talk in front of them.”

Amson gripped Shrapnel by the elbow and hurried out, followed by Muddyman. In the silence, Moyra sat with her hands over the picture of Karen, looking at Tennison with dead, unemotional eyes.

“I didn’t know Della, I didn’t even remember her. She was just a kid. But I did her nails, she used to bite them and . . . I didn’t know her, it was just that she used to come and have the odd nail replaced, you know, if she’d broken one.”

Tennison nodded without speaking. Moyra didn’t really want to talk about Della, this was not why she had wanted the men out of the room, there was something else. Moyra tugged at her skirt, darting glances at Tennison, her whole body twisting and turning, her hands picking at her own false nails. She looked at Havers, chewing at her lip, then back to Tennison. Then she leaned forward, her chin in her hand, as if she didn’t want anyone else to hear.