Kate had been busy all day with the new development. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that it was the same man who had murdered Geraldine O’Leary. She had been shocked to see the severity of the beating the girl had taken. All the fingers of one hand were broken, as if stamped on, and a large chunk of her head had been literally hacked from the skull. Even the doctors agreed that the girl should by rights be dead. But she was a fighter, like her father.

In spite of everything Kate knew about Patrick Kelly, she still could not help liking him. He was arrogant, self-opinionated and a bit of a male chauvinist. That much was evident even to an inexperienced observer. He had obviously ruled his daughter’s life. A life that she was hanging on to by a thread. But after he had calmed down, she had seen another side to him. Inside the hospital she had witnessed the depth of his grief. Even with his bombast and his violent temper, Kate had felt an affinity with him. Anyone who had to witness the destruction of a child would feel the same.

She remembered when, years before, Lizzy had gone missing for an afternoon. Everyone had told her not to worry, that she was probably playing and had forgotten the time and Kate had felt the same rage inside her. Being a policewoman, she knew exactly what could have befallen her daughter. She had seen it enough times. She had wanted to slap the supercilious smiles off the faces around her. Lizzy had been found in the local woods setting up camp with a boy from two streets away. Kate had given her the one and only good hiding of her life. Not so much because she had gone missing but because of the fear she had caused her mother. Kate had sensed that same feeling in Kelly in the night.

She had stayed with him until Mandy had come out of theatre. During the long vigil he had talked again about his daughter and his dead wife. As if the very action of talking about her would somehow keep Mandy alive. It was this gentleness that attracted Kate to him. His more sinister reputation was overshadowed by his grief for his child.