‘In the end, he hated his mother for abandoning him. That’s why he’s been taking the women, but not killing them immediately. He holds them captive so he’s no longer alone, but also so they can experience what he went through. Ultimately, he knows they’re not his mother and, once he acknowledges that, he allows his rage to take over and murders them. He kept this book and photos of his mother, while there’s nothing of his grandfather. His feelings for her are far more complex than those he had for the old man. He loved and reviled her. When she was here, when she was mothering him and protecting him from his grandfather, she must have shown him kindness. This book – she’s the princess in it and he’s the prince. I think that’s why he gives his victims the bracelets. Out of love. They’re all his princesses.’

‘If it’s about his mother, does that mean he is or isn’t sexually assaulting them?’ Ray asked.

Linda frowned.

‘I would guess no. This isn’t about sex for him. It’s about owning the women. But I can’t be certain. Rape is not about sexual satisfaction, after all. It’s about power. He could be using it to exert his control over them. Oh, darling, I’m sure that’s not …’

Ray had paled.

‘Linda, why does Glendalough mean so much to him?’ Tom asked, wanting to move the conversation on. ‘Could his mother have brought him there?’

Linda glanced at Ray again, thrown for a moment. She took a deep breath and gathered herself.

‘I suppose so. Yes, that could be it. It may have been a special place for them, somewhere they shared a happy memory. Like so many Irish children. He was a child in the eighties and the Catholic Church was dominant then. Perhaps the combination of his mother bringing him there and the religious aspect, which you speculated about earlier in the case, gave him a particular affinity for the place. Once he buried his first victim there, the subsequent burials were a natural progression. He would have become fixated on keeping all the women in the same place.’

‘Didn’t you mention something about the round tower in the monastic settlement, too?’ Tom said, squinting as he recalled. ‘How it had fairy-tale connotations?’

‘Yes …’ Linda suspected where he was going. ‘But if Glendalough is blocked off, surely it’s all irrelevant now?’

‘The security has only been in place for the last couple of hours.’

‘So he could have got to it beforehand? That tower is only accessible by ladder, Tom. The door to it is twelve feet off the ground.’

‘I know. But we’ll get the lads out there to check it out.’