‘From what I can gather she had on average five or six punters a day. She slept with all those different men every day. Do you know, it’s weird, Kate, but it never occurred to me before. Those women were like animals to me. You’re sorry if people ill treat them but you forget about them quickly . . .’

Kate watched him for a second. She picked up the plates of sandwiches and took them into the lounge, then she poured the tea and took that in too.

‘Come and sit down, Pat, I think you need to get all this off your chest.’

He followed Kate through into the lounge. Sitting on the settee, he sipped his tea.

‘What’s really wrong, Pat? Is it the girl getting murdered or the fact that she was on your premises at the time?’

Kate had hit the proverbial nail on the head and Kelly was shocked that she knew him so well after such a short time.

‘A bit of both, I think, if I’m honest. You should have seen her, Kate, she could have been my Mandy lying there. I’ve been doing everything humanly possible to help catch this Ripper bloke and yet I’ve been catering to scum like him for years.’

‘Well, Pat, women will always sell their bodies. From soft porn to hard porn to streetwalking, sex is one of the biggest moneyspinners in the world. The girl would maybe have done it anyway, if not for you then for someone else. Is that what you want to hear? Is that what you want me to say?’

Kate’s voice was low but there was no mistaking her fury. Patrick looked into her face and for the first time he saw real anger. It unnerved him.

‘I heard about that girl’s death today, Pat, it was on the news. I didn’t know you owned the massage parlour. But shall I tell you what went through my mind as I listened to the radio? I thought, I wonder who’s the man making money off this girl’s back. I knew it would be a man. Funny that, isn’t it? I never dreamt it was you though. The man who paid for the blood testing of five thousand men to find the pervert who killed his daughter. Will you be paying for this inquiry, by the way?’ Kate lifted her eyebrows at Kelly and he had the grace to look away.