She just shook her head and broke down once more. Grant got to his feet and pulled his wife into him, cradling her right there on the gravel. The neighbours could stare all they wanted. Sod them. None of this was his doing, or Mary’s – it was Ethan’s.

‘I hate him,’ Mary said. ‘God, sometimes I really hate him. My own son.’

Grant just shook his head, not knowing how to respond to her words which cut right into his heart.

‘No,’ he said. ‘No, you can’t.’

‘But I do,’ Mary pulled her head back and looked into Grant’s eyes. ‘And do you know the worst part? I hate myself even more for feeling like this.’

Grant didn’t say anything to that. What could he say?

He heard sirens. A few seconds later the flashing of blue lights was visible over the garden wall. The police car came into view at the gates and crunched to a stop on the road outside. Grant felt himself deflate further, if that was even possible.

His line of sight passed from the two police officers who emerged from the car and back across to the other side of the road. Ed Francis’s hedge clippers lay on the tarmac, next to a pair of garden gloves, and Grant watched as his neighbour scuttled back towards his front door, glancing over his shoulder in disapproval as he went. Whether it was Francis or one of the other neighbours who’d called the police, Grant didn’t know. One thing was for sure, though: within seconds there would be curtains twitching everywhere.

Chapter Nine

‘What the hell was that all about then?’ Easton spouted as he and Dani drove away from June Staunton’s house.

Forensics had combed through the old lady’s home and garden, taking whatever pictures and samples they saw fit. A technician had swabbed Mrs Staunton’s neck, checked her body for other unusual marks, and taken a sample of blood and urine. The investigators had remained on site for several hours, by which point Mrs Staunton was not just terrified but shattered as well. Her son, a not exactly spritely young man himself, had been there when Dani arrived the second time around, giving his mother some much-needed comfort.

‘I really don’t know,’ was all Dani could say to the question.

‘It has to be the killer, don’t you think? He was in there. With her. But why?’

Dani shivered at the thought of that shadow at the window. Had the killer of the Jane Doe really been so brazen as to have gone from the murder scene and broken into the home to drug an old lady so he could spy on the police?

And was spying really his plan or had there been another reason for drugging Mrs Staunton?

‘He had the sedative with him already,’ Dani said, thinking out loud.