Since Mandy had died, he’d gone soft, he admitted that. Knowing grief as he did, he wanted to spare as many people as possible the experience. Except the Grantley Ripper. That was one man he wanted people to grieve for. When that bastard was dead, maybe he would start living a proper life, a life that he hoped would include Kate Burrows.

Kate was beginning to mean a lot to him. He thought about her constantly. The day she had come to his house to talk about her daughter’s problem he had felt much closer to her. He knew that she was a DI and a bloody good one, by all accounts. He knew that they came from two different worlds, but still nothing would deter him.

When she’d said she was worried about her superiors, he’d felt like telling her that he had her superiors right where he wanted them, but he couldn’t. Kate would not stand for anything like that, she was too straight. That’s what he liked about her. From the first night he had met her, when she had stood up to him in his own house, he had been attracted to her. She was one of the few people who had no fear of him, even her Chief Constable would be shocked if he heard the way she argued with him sometimes.

Kate was a woman in every sense of the word, and she was a woman who would not give herself to a man lightly. When they had gone to bed together on New Year’s Eve it had been like a revelation to him. Never before, not even with Renée, had he felt such a force of love in him. She confided afterwards that it was the first sexual contact she’d had in over five years. She had only ever had one man before in her life. To Patrick that statement had put her above everyone. She was clean and decent and he wanted her on any terms.

He wondered how her daughter was. How Kate was coping with the day.

He found himself thinking about her all the time.

Despite all his heartbreak, it was a pleasant feeling.

Kate and Evelyn took Lizzy to Warley themselves. They had stopped off at home and packed a case for her and then they had stayed to help her settle in. The funny thing was that Lizzy seemed glad to be going. At least everyone there seemed very nice, they had welcomed Lizzy and made her feel secure and wanted. She was sharing a room with a girl called Anita, an ex heroin addict. Anita was small and blonde and full of life; she seemed to hit it off with Lizzy straight away.