‘I want you to search this place thoroughly. The house and the shed and the garage. Thoroughly, mind.’

‘What are we looking for, sir?’

Caitlin smiled. ‘That’s just it, lads. I don’t really know.’

He was outside in his car smoking one of his cigars when a PC came outside and tapped on the window.

‘I think you’d better have a look at this, sir, I don’t know if it means anything.’

Caitlin followed him through the house and up the garden to the shed. There were all George’s magazines and scrapbooks.

Caitlin nodded to himself. His hunch has been right. There was only one thing wrong: it seemed Patrick Kelly had found the Grantley Ripper first.

He went out to his car and radioed in.

Kate was there within ten minutes with her squad. They began systematically to tear the house apart. No one was really sure what they were looking for until DS Willis and DS Spencer went up into the loft.

‘Cor! What’s that bloody awful smell?’

Spencer turned on the light as he spoke and Willis pulled the lid off the water tank.

Spencer watched as he staggered backwards, his hands over his mouth, until he dropped out of sight through the loft entrance.

The other detective sergeant went to the tank and put his handkerchief over his nose.

Elaine was lying on her side, her head at an impossible angle. Her eyes were milky white and bulbous. Her waterlogged skin was purple-grey and swollen.

He fainted just as Kate and Caitlin climbed into the loft. Kate called through the hatch: ‘Someone get up here and remove Spencer, please, and call the pathologist.’

Kate and Caitlin took one glance at Elaine and then looked at each other. This was the Grantley Ripper’s home all right, complete with dead wife.

The only question was, where was George Markham?

In Caitlin’s mind there was another question. Where the hell was Kelly?

He made a mental note to have the Rolls Royce part omitted from the next-door neighbour’s statement. Until he knew more, anyway.

He stared at Kate, a look of sadness on his face. She instinctively put her hand on his arm, assuming that he was sad for the poor woman in front of them.

It never occurred to her that the sympathy could have been for her.

The mood in the incident room was one of pure elation.

They had the Grantley Ripper.

Kate allowed Caitlin to give her a glass of whisky. Everyone was patting themselves on the back, laughing and joking.

She picked up her phone as it rang. It was Frederick Flowers, and Kate held her arms up for hush as she put the phone on to the intercom.

‘Well done, one and all. I knew you’d catch him. I’m releasing the news to the press in a couple of hours. You can all be very proud of yourselves.’