We did not speak when we were running. And we did not speak as we cleaned ourselves up and I dressed the wound that he had on his elbow, his flesh torn away by the front teeth of the last man.

And then we looked at each other.

‘What kind of chef were you?’ I said.

11

A Media Liaison Officer was meant to be briefing DCI Pat Whitestone before the press conference at West End Central. But it was the Chief Super, DCS Swire, who was doing most of the briefing.

‘The message we need to send, Pat, is that nobody takes the law into their own hands. Because that doesn’t improve the law. It destroys it. Just keep hammering that point home.’

‘Phone call, ma’am,’ TDC Billy Greene said.

Behind her glasses, DCI Whitestone’s eyes flashed with anger.

‘I said no calls, Billy.’

‘You’ll want to take this, ma’am.’ He hesitated. ‘I’m afraid it’s your son.’

Whitestone took the call and I went to the window where Edie Wren was staring down at the street. The circus was arriving. Camera crews, satellite vans, and dozens of reporters.

‘And they’re not even serial killers yet,’ Edie said.

‘Give them time,’ I said. ‘They’ve done two. They only need one more to make the grade.’

‘Are you all right, Pat?’ the Chief Super said behind us.

Whitestone was white-faced with shock.

‘It’s Just. My son. My Just. I thought he was staying with a friend last night. But he’s at the hospital. They tell me he’s been there all night. There’s been . . . an incident. Someone – a gang – put a bottle across his eyes.’ She fought to control herself. She took her glasses off and polished them. ‘Ma’am,’ she said to the Chief Super. ‘They say – they think – the doctors think there’s a chance he could lose his sight.’

To me Whitestone’s son was a shadow that I had glimpsed on a computer screen late at night when his mother Skyped him from our office. They talked of the domestic minutiae that fill a family’s life – homework, meals, triumphs and disappointments, the plans for tomorrow. It suddenly felt as if he would never be the same boy again.

‘Go to him,’ the Chief Super said. ‘Just go.’

‘But the press conference—’

‘Just go to your son,’ Swire said, and she physically escorted Whitestone to the door of MIR-1. ‘Go to him now. Nothing is more important.’

When Whitestone was gone, the MLO stood before the Chief Super, shaking her head.

‘But who’s going to take the press conference?’ the MLO said.

‘The investigation’s senior officer,’ the Chief Super said, and she looked at me without enthusiasm.