George looked at her and tutted once more.

It was her own fault. All her own fault. Women always caused trouble. They were just so bloody stupid . . . Stupid fucking bitches! Bringing his fist back he smashed it into her face as hard as he could.

Mick O’Leary looked at the policewoman’s face in disbelief. He had been up all night and thought that maybe his mind was playing tricks on him.

‘What did you say?’

The WPC had never felt so bad in all her life. She saw the three children huddled together on the settee. Their father’s fear had communicated itself to them. She could have cried herself.

‘Your wife was found an hour ago, Mr O’Leary. She’s been murdered.’

The WPC watched the man’s face crumple before her eyes, and put her arm around his shoulders.

‘Not my Gerry . . . Not my lovely Gerry. Please tell me that it’s not true? Please?’

Mick O’Leary’s voice broke as he spoke the last word and he put his hands to his face, the tears bursting through his fingers like a dam.

‘Dad! Don’t cry, Daddy!’

Ten-year-old Grania pulled her younger brother and sister into her arms. She had never seen her daddy cry before.

‘I want my mum. When’s my mummy coming home?’

At the same moment as Mick O’Leary was being told that his world had been ripped apart, George Markham was cooking his wife a nice breakfast.

Elaine walked into the kitchen, the smell of eggs and bacon making her mouth water.

‘Oh, George, I would have done that.’

He actually laughed.

‘I wanted to do it for you, my love. I do love you, you know, Elaine.’

‘Do you, George?’

For some unknown reason his saying that he loved her depressed her more than anything else he could have done.

George held out her chair for her and she sat down at the table.

‘Eat that up, my dear.’

Elaine stared at the eggs, bacon and tomatoes, and her appetite came back.

George watched her eat.

That’s why you’re so fat, Elaine, he thought, because you’re a greedy bitch.

‘Now then, my dear, what’s it to be? Tea or coffee?’ His voice was as polite as ever.

But George had a secret. A very important and exciting secret that he would not tell to a living soul.

He ate his own breakfast. For some reason he had a ravenous appetite this morning.

Chapter Three

Chapter Three

Elaine sat at her till in the supermarket. Every customer who had passed through the large glass doors today had had only one thing on their minds: the rape and murder of Geraldine O’Leary. Since the body had been found, Grantley had been buzzing with news, views and assumptions. While tills crashed around her and people packed their shopping Elaine chatted to a customer, a woman who had known the victim.