‘Dad,’ she said. ‘I am so sorry.’

He sat next to her and embraced her, the prodigal daughter finally back at home.

Later that week, Gillard found himself accompanying the chief constable to RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire. A private flight had been laid on to take the body of Beatrice Ulbricht back to Germany for burial. The two police officers stood on the chilly windswept apron by a small jet, alongside a group of Beatrice’s closest British friends and colleagues. Among them were the three remaining members of the Lysander String Quartet. In the distance, a sleek hearse led a cortège of vehicles towards them. The polished black Jaguar came to a halt and four uniformed pallbearers got out and slid the coffin from the back. Beatrice’s parents emerged from a following vehicle. As they did so, the sound of a solo violin soared above the distant traffic.

Karl-Otto Ulbricht put an arm around his wife. They watched the coffin being gently slid onto the conveyor which took it almost silently into the belly of the aircraft. As the ramp withdrew, and then closed like a giant mouth, many of those watching embraced each other, and quietly cried. Gillard blinked too, his vision smearing. This was not only sympathy with those close to her but also a measure of guilt for his own failure to apprehend the killer before he had struck several more times. It was only yesterday when he had met the parents of PC Lynne Fairbanks, still struggling to come to terms with the death of their daughter. Her funeral would come next week, along with that of Yvonne Fairfield and of Jane Morris. His own aunt had narrowly avoided that fate, still in a coma, her condition stable.

Claire Mulholland had told him that after three years Yvonne’s mother had ceased the daily emails beseeching her to think about her missing daughter. She had rung Claire yesterday and thanked her for giving her the peace of knowledge.

‘There is some kind of closure now,’ she had said.

Epilogue

Melanie Perry was charged with murder, but admitted the lesser charge of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. The trial created a huge public debate. In the middle of the judge’s summing up someone shouted out from the public gallery: ‘She shouldn’t go to jail, she should get a bloody medal!’ This didn’t just sum up the public mood but that of the jury too, who, ignoring the comprehensive evidence of premeditation, acquitted her. For manslaughter, she was sentenced to three years.

Sam Gillard was slow to recover from her horrific confinement of more than thirty-six hours in the steel box. The sensory deprivation, the panic-inducing claustrophobia and the feeling of freezing water mounting slowly towards her gagged mouth reappeared nightly in horrific dreams for many months. Counselling and therapy helped, and she was eventually able to describe her ordeal.

One of Sam’s first trips out of the house in those difficult early months was a trip with Gillard to visit John Perry and his daughter Vanessa, who were also rebuilding their lives. Later Sam would go to visit Melanie Perry at HMP Bronzefield women’s prison, partly to thank her, but also to share her experiences of being a victim of the same devious criminal.