The misogynist part of it Kate had already worked out for herself; the ferocity of the attacks had told her as much. There seemed to be no motive of any kind; there rarely was in such cases. He was a sick man.

What they had to try and find out now was something that tied the two attacks together in some way. Kate frowned. Could he have a job that had brought him into contact with the two women? But one worked in a wine bar and one in a beauty salon. No matter how hard she thought she could not tie them together.

Even as all the evidence was being collated, there was nothing. Not one single thing that gave even a hint of who or what the murderer was. He had worn gloves on both occasions. The fibres from the body of Geraldine O’Leary had belonged to a family of wool that was used in literally hundreds of thousands of jumpers, coats, and other garments.

Kate felt the steel band of a headache tighten over her eyes and rubbed them with her finger and thumb, pressing on the closed lids as if the action would conjure up something she or one of the other officers had missed.

Finally she stood up and made her way to the interview room. Alongside the photos of Geraldine O’Leary there were now two more. In one Mandy Kelly was smiling, long blond hair framing her tiny heart-shaped face. In the other she was lying in a hospital bed, her lovely hair shaved from her head. Deep gouges showed up in burgundy and black where her skull had been smashed. Both eyes were swollen and her nose was broken beyond recognition. Kate sighed. All around her the incident room was a hive of activity. Amanda Dawkins had tapped into the DVLC’s computer and was finding out the name and address of every person in Grantley and the surrounding areas who owned either a dark green saloon car or a dark blue Orion.

The tapping of the typewriters and the constant buzz of voices in the smoke-filled room had not given Kate the headache, it was the stress of this case.

Picking up a file from Amanda’s desk, she walked from the room.

Patrick Kelly lit a Dunhill cigarette with his gold lighter and exhaled noisily. By the time he had showered and changed, six men had arrived at his house. Now they were sitting in his morning room, uneasily awaiting their orders.

Kelly looked at the lighter for a long moment. Mandy had given it to him for his forty-second birthday. Every time he thought of Mandy he felt panic rise in his breast. If she died . . . Oh God in heaven! If she died he had nothing. Nothing in the world.