‘She was relaxed in my company. Chatty. She told me she’d been living in an awful situation but she was going to get out of it. I turned the car and drove in the direction of where I was living at the time. She laughed and said she couldn’t leave right now. But then she got angry and I put my hand over her mouth. She was so scared, she just sat there quietly for miles.’

‘Where were you living back then?’

‘Just outside Waterford City. I kept her for a while. I didn’t want to hurt her. I wanted to protect her. I wanted her to stay. But sometimes, all I could see was my mother and I needed her to know how much pain I’d been in. How frightened I was. She didn’t understand. One day, she was screaming and yelling at me and I just placed my hands around her throat and squeezed until she stopped.’

Lane’s eyes glazed over as he recalled the final moments of his first victim’s murder. Tom wanted to look away, but he was transfixed.

‘How long did you keep her?’ he asked, when he found his voice.

‘I … can’t remember.’

That was a lie. Tom waited.

‘I don’t know. Maybe six months?’

‘Jesus,’ Michael spat.

‘I didn’t want to kill her,’ Lane protested, as though that somehow excused his holding her captive for so long. ‘I didn’t. I vomited, after, when I realised what I’d done. I thought she’d wake up. I bought her a present – a little bracelet – and I told her if she woke, I’d let her go. I would rescue her, just like I’d been rescued.’

‘But she didn’t,’ Tom said. ‘The thing is, I can believe what you’re saying, Charlie. And if Pauline had been your only victim, this would be a different conversation. But you went and did it again, didn’t you?’

Lane blinked. He nodded, slowly.

‘Not for a long time,’ he said, his voice low. ‘I didn’t want to do it again. I moved away from Waterford, down to West Cork. Everything was – normal. But I couldn’t stop thinking about Pauline. It was horrific, when she died. But after I accepted that she was dead – what I’d done – I felt calm. It was as though, with her death, something had been put to rest. For the first time in my life, I was at peace. But, as time went on, it started to slip away.’

‘So the only way you could find peace was by kidnapping women and murdering them? Pauline, Mary Ellen, Treasa, Eimear, Una and now Fiona Holland. You kept them captive for a while, Charlie. So where is Fiona? Have you killed her already?’

Lane shook his head.