Lucy watched him through the two-way glass of the interview room mirror. His name was Ray Spellman and the most extraordinary thing about him was how unextraordinary he was. Without his heavy coat and hood, not to mention his devilish mask, he was as suburban as they came: a mid-to-late forties everyman, bland of feature, with a small, neatly trimmed moustache, overweight to the point of being dumpy – the sort of guy you literally wouldn’t look twice at in the street. Even now, dressed in a white jumpsuit, hands still cuffed, as he faced Tucker and Smiley across the interview room table, the duty solicitor next to him scribbling notes, it looked like a mistake; you were tempted to say: ‘Come on, this can’t be the guy.’

But he’d come clean about his murderous alter-ego, ‘the Creep’, almost from the moment of his arrest. Not exactly relieved, not as if he was unloading something hideous from his soul. But because he was clearly of a logical bent and had recognised that his time was up. He’d had his fun and now it would be better for all if he simply co-operated.

Kathy Blake had not joined Lucy in the darkened viewing room, because it was after 3 a.m. and she was on an obbo at six. But two other officers who were currently off-duty were present: Stan Beardmore, and their overarching supervisor, Chief Superintendent Charles Mullany, a tall, lean man with a shock of white hair and thick, snow-white eyebrows. Normally famous for his immaculate uniform, he maintained a regal bearing even in his late-night attire of sweater, slacks and loafers.

‘And when you say “resisting the urge,” Ray,’ Smiley asked the prisoner. ‘Do you mean the urge to rob? Were you short of money?’

‘No, it wasn’t really about the money,’ Spellman replied. ‘I never needed the money … though there were times when I tried to tell myself that anything I earned from these robberies was my fee for the risk I’d taken.’

‘Your fee?’

Spellman shrugged. ‘You sound pissed off, but don’t be. I was kidding myself. Trying to justify walking away with these people’s cash. It was never about that, you see. When I say the urge, I mean the urge to attack someone.’

‘So, what was it?’ Tucker asked. ‘A kind of sexual thing?’

Spellman gave that serious thought. ‘Maybe. I never had an orgasm or anything. But it gave me this incredible feeling of power. Especially when I was out hunting. The chase was better than the catch, I suppose you could say.’