She turned to her husband.

‘Get this scum out of my house, Stan. Now!’

Patrick looked at the man in front of him and shook his head as if to say: I understand.

‘Take your cheque book, Mr Kelly. I want none of your dirty money. I’ll bury me own according to my purse, not yours.’

Patrick left the maisonette and Stanley followed him out on to the landing.

‘I’m sorry, Mr Kelly, but it’s what happened. It’s turned her head like. She’ll come round. We’re potless, see. I ain’t worked for four years. And now we ain’t got Gilly’s money coming in.’

Kelly nodded. ‘I’ll see that you get the money, Mr Enderby.’

‘I think it would be best in notes like, we ain’t got a bank account.’ His voice trailed off and Patrick nodded again. He went down the stairs and got into his car. Out of the two of them he preferred the girl’s mother. At least her grief was genuine. Gillian Enderby’s father was capitalising on his daughter’s death, which hardly seemed to bother him.

But it bothered Patrick Kelly.

It bothered him a lot.

Kate had arrived at the church early and sat alone at the back, enjoying the quietness and solitude. As a Roman Catholic, Mandy Kelly’s body had been left in church overnight ready for the Requiem Mass in the morning. Her Aunt Grace was delegated to sit with the body while the soul departed for heaven. This was an old Irish tradition that was still kept alive by every new generation.

Kate knelt down and prayed for the first time in years. She had forgotten the feeling of peace and contentment an empty church could bring. She prayed for the soul of Mandy Kelly and all the murdered women and girls.

The funeral was at nine thirty, but the church had begun to fill up before nine. Kate watched from the back as various criminals and businessmen turned up. She was not too surprised when Chief Constable Frederick Flowers arrived with his wife. Or when the local MP and his wife also showed up. She did admit to a slight feeling of surprise when she noticed two prominent heads of the Serious Crime Squad. Both shook Patrick’s hand and one of the men, known in the force as Mad Bill McCormack because of his unorthodox methods of obtaining arrests with a pickaxe handle, actually hugged him close. To Kate it was a real education and her naivety troubled her. She was a good detective, she knew her job, but this closeness between the criminal world and the police had never before been so blatantly thrust on her. Oh, she knew that it went on, but it seemed that the days when villains and police met only under cover of darkness were over. Now they met socially.

She pushed the thoughts from her mind. It was the funeral of Patrick’s only child and she should be pleased for him that so many people had turned out to pay their respects. It helped some people when their departed were shown to be popular and cared for.