He then led them on foot into the herpetology building. ‘Only the gharial will be inside this building, with the monitor lizards and snakes. I suppose I shall put the scorpions and tropical spiders in here too because they like the warmth.’

‘Are you going to open it to the public?’ Cottesloe asked.

Van Steenis blew a long sigh. ‘Well, maybe one day if the sheikh can be persuaded. We’ve already got planning permission for a bigger visitor centre, but it might lapse. You see, many of the buildings here would not pass the zoo licence requirements. I’ll have to rebuild them first, and then there is all the woodland we would have to lose for the car park, which would break my heart. Finally, there’s the great undisciplined British public, tapping on the glass, disturbing the animals, chucking litter and bottles into the enclosures, all that stuff. I don’t know, the sheikh quite likes it as it is, and I’m sympathetic to that view.’

Cottesloe checked his watch and told van Steenis that they should be going.

‘If I’ve answered all your questions, I’ve got one of my own.’

‘Go ahead,’ Cottesloe said.

‘Perhaps it’s not quite on the point, but I have to say I am outraged to hear that the police are going to release from prison one of the worst murderers in British history—’

‘Ah, it’s not the police who were releasing him,’ Wickens said. ‘In fact if it was down to me—’

‘Not only that, but if the newspapers are cricked, public money will be spent giving this man a new identity. So he will be invisible in our community, ready to strike again.’

‘Your concern, sir, is noted,’ Cottesloe said, getting into dealing-with-the-concerned-public mode. ‘The Parole Board in its wisdom makes its decisions only when an offender is considered to be safe to release.’

‘May I remind you that the Bogeyman used to torture his victims, most of whom were adolescent boys,’ van Steenis continued.

‘Yeah, he’s evil personified,’ Wickens said, eyeing his colleague. ‘He should have been kept inside for life.’

Van Steenis shook his head. ‘No, PC Wickens, not so. He should not have been kept inside. He should have been hanged. It isn’t fashionable to say so, but execution has much to recommend it these days. Miscarriages of justice are much less likely because of the power of DNA evidence, which neutralises the one powerful argument against the gallows. It would save the great British public a lot of money too.’

‘You’ve got a good point there,’ Wickens conceded. ‘You really have.’

‘I looked it up. It costs £26,133 per annum to keep a prisoner. Times thirty years and that’s over three-quarters of a million pounds. Multiply by the number of murders each year, say 700, and that’s half a billion—’