Someone must have seen something, however small. Those flats were a hive of activity. From glue sniffers to heroin addicts, that’s where they congregated. Even their statements, however vague, could spark off a train of inquiry.

As the post mortem began Kate and Caitlin both had the same thought: once more the man had come and gone without being seen.

For the first time in years Kate crossed her fingers. She had a feeling that she’d need all the luck she could get.

Patrick heard about Leonora Davidson from his friend the Chief Constable. He was promised all the information they had about it within twenty-four hours. He was sitting in his drawing room contemplating the new event. However much he liked Kate - and he did like her, he liked her a lot - she was getting nowhere. Neither were the men he had employed, he had to admit. He closed his eyes and rubbed them hard.

If only he had something to go on. One little clue was all he needed. He knew that Kate was doing everything she could but this man was taking the piss now. He was sitting somewhere, laughing up his sleeve at them all, and Patrick Kelly was not a man who could stomach that. Every time he thought about it, it brought on a red hot rage.

He had picked out a white coffin for his daughter, with a deep red satin interior. The coffin was lead lined, airless and insect proof. The thought of his lovely child under the ground in the cold and the damp, with centipedes and other lifeforms crawling all over her face, in her mouth and through her long blond hair, made him feel sick. But the man who had put her there . . . now he was a different kettle of fish altogether. Patrick Kelly would see to it that he rotted away, that he died as horrifically as he had killed.

Kelly rubbed his eyes again. The strain was beginning to tell now. He knew he was dangerously close to exploding point. He glanced at the photograph of Mandy on the mantelpiece. It had been taken a few weeks before her death at the birthday party of one of her friends. The girl had had it enlarged and framed and sent it to him, a kindly act that had brought tears to his eyes. Whoever had taken the picture had caught Mandy with her head back, her eyes half closed, her teeth looking like perfect pearls as she laughed. It was one of those lucky photographs that occasionally get taken with a cheap snapper camera, and he loved it.

Willy tapped on the door softly before entering the room.

‘It’s Kevin Cosgrove, Pat, he wants to see you.’ The big man’s eyebrows lifted. ‘Want me to smack him one and send him on his way?’ Willy’s voice was hopeful.

Kelly shook his head. ‘No. Show him in.’