‘This is Albert Pierrepoint’s suitcase,’ John Caine said. ‘People misunderstand Pierrepoint. They forget how important he was to this country. He didn’t simply represent punishment. He represented justice – right up until capital punishment started being seen as wicked and cruel and not very nice. But before that, Pierrepoint was a national hero. Who do you think hanged all those Nazi war criminals after the Second World War? Old Albert went to Germany twenty-five times in four years and strung up over two hundred Nazis. Not that he enjoyed it much, because they were making him do job lots – a dozen or so at a time. Old Albert was a bit of a perfectionist, with a lot of professional pride in his work.’ He had a sip of his tea. ‘The people who killed this child abuser – they use a picture of Pierrepoint online, don’t they?’

I nodded.

‘So they want justice,’ I said. ‘They want revenge.’

John gently closed Albert Pierrepoint’s suitcase. ‘And what’s wrong with a bit of revenge?’ he said.

My phone began to vibrate. EDIE WREN CALLING, said the display. Her voice was tight with adrenaline.

‘We’ve got another hanging,’ she said. ‘Go online and watch it.’

‘I’ll be back in the office in fifteen minutes,’ I said. ‘I’ll watch it then.’

‘Max,’ she said. ‘Go online and watch it now.’ Edie Wren took a breath. ‘This one is live.’

We watched the second man hang on John Caine’s computer.

At first it looked like exactly the same set-up with the camera aimed up at a terrified man standing on some kind of stool as the same voice asked the same question.

‘Do you know why you’ve been brought to this place of execution?’

But the picture was far sharper, and there was a date and time stamp running in the bottom right-hand corner, as if they wanted the world to know that this public execution was going out live.

It was the same room. You could see the walls more clearly this time, and they seemed to be rotting with age, brickwork that was once white crumbling to yellow and green and brown.

‘Where’s that look like, John?’

We leaned in closer. I heard John Caine quietly curse.

‘I feel like I know,’ he said. ‘But I don’t remember.’

The condemned man on the stool was babbling with terror. There was a rope being placed around his neck and it snaked off out of shot to the ceiling. He was a much younger man than Mahmud Irani, and dressed in a suit and tie. And white.

‘Do you know—’