There was a part of Tom that felt sympathy for the man who had once been the little boy. He had suffered a violent and abusive beginning, like so many offenders the guards encountered. But the inspector couldn’t do anything for the child who’d witnessed horror at the hands of his grandfather. And he was angry because, of everybody, Charlie Lane knew how it felt to be locked up and frightened. Yet he’d inflicted that time and again on innocent women, and worse. He’d survived his ordeal as a child. His victims had no such luck.

‘Why did you do it?’ he asked Lane, curiosity getting the better of him. ‘Was it to punish your mother for leaving you? Why didn’t you find her and put her through what you’d experienced? The women you took had done nothing wrong.’

‘I looked for her,’ he answered. ‘She was dead. I didn’t want to punish her. I wanted to forgive her. But she denied me even that. They tracked her down – social services – soon after they found me. Told her what her father had done to me. But she didn’t care. She was so far gone with her addictions that I didn’t matter. He beat me every day and kept me in that cellar for weeks and she didn’t care. But you’re wrong, Inspector.’

‘What am I wrong about?’

‘Those women I took. They weren’t innocent. They were all just like her. Sluts. Bitches. Women who didn’t give a shit about anybody or anything bar themselves. I chose carefully. Their own neighbours told me what they were like. Sometimes, even their family.’

‘No,’ Tom shook his head. ‘No, that’s not true. They were just young women, living their lives. Maybe they made mistakes, but who knew what their futures held? You’d no right to take that from them. My detective – you know nothing about her life. And what about Pauline O’Hara? She was a victim of domestic abuse. She didn’t party, or sleep with lots of men, or abandon a child. What had she done wrong?’

Lane flushed.

‘Pauline. She … her death was a mistake. I was just driving around collecting fares and there she was, waiting at the bus stop. It was lashing rain and she was on her own. I pulled over, just to offer her a taxi on the cheap. She’d all those shopping bags. She got in. She was so like my mother. She had the same eyes, the same smile. Something clicked in my head. It was almost the anniversary of my mother leaving and it was like God had given her back to me.