As she walked past him he grabbed her arm. She looked first at his hand, the fingers digging into her arm, and then up into his face. She saw the terrible knowledge in his eyes and then he crumpled. It was as if someone had punctured him - he just crumpled before her eyes and instinctively she put her arm around him. He clung to her.

‘If she dies I have nothing, nothing.’

She steered him back to the chair and he put his head into his hands. Harsh racking sobs burst from inside his chest, exploding as they hit the air.

The nurse walked in with the coffee and Kate took the tray and hustled her out.

She gave him his coffee and lit a cigarette for him, placing it between his lips.

‘It’s the bastard who murdered that barmaid, ain’t it?’

Kate knew it had taken a lot for him to admit his real fears.

She nodded. ‘We think so.’

‘Has she been raped?’

Kate nodded again.

He sipped his coffee and a calm descended on him. He knew the worst now. Nothing else could be this bad.

‘You realise he’s a dead man, don’t you? Even if she lives. He’s a dead man.’

Kate sipped her own coffee.

There was nothing to be said.

Chapter Six

Chapter Six

Patrick Kelly drove home from the hospital at eight in the morning. He looked terrible and he knew it. His mouth tasted foul from instant coffee and cheap cigarettes. And he was fuming.

His daughter was lying between life and death, raped and beaten nearly to death. He felt the tightening around his heart and for one horrible second thought he was going to have a heart attack. He tried to control his breathing.

When he had seen her, his baby, lying in intensive care, full of tubes and drips and bandages, he had felt a red rage behind his eyes the like of which he had never experienced. Some piece of filth had taken his child - his child! - and forced himself on her.

She had been buggered, that was the worst of it all. His child had been buggered by some piece of scum.

Well, that piece of scum had better start saying his prayers, because Kelly was going to find him - find him and rip him to shreds.

He screeched to a halt in his driveway and as he ran towards it the front door was opened by Willy Gabney. Without speaking to the man, he rushed through the entrance lobby, the large tiled hall, and up the curved staircase, taking the steps three at a time. By the time he got to the bedroom where Kevin Cosgrove lay asleep, his chest and lungs were burning with every breath.