When the profiling task force was set up according to the recommendations he’d made, he’d been the inevitable choice to take charge of training a hand-picked team of young police officers in psychological profiling techniques. It should have been a straightforward assignment, but it had turned into an excursion into hell for Tony and his charges. For a second time, he had been forced to confound the rules that said his should be an arm’s-length role. For a second time, he had ended up with blood on his hands. And the absolute certainty that he didn’t want to have to do any of it ever again.

His participation in the shadow world of offender profiling had cost him more than he cared to tot up. Two years later, and he was still never free of the past. Every day, when he went through the motions of a professional life he didn’t really believe in, he couldn’t help thinking of what he had walked away from. He’d been good at it, he knew. But in the end, that hadn’t been enough.

Impatient with himself, he ejected the Philip Glass cassette. Music gave him too much space for idle speculation. Words, that’s what he needed to divert him from his pointless introversion. He listened to the tail end of a discussion about the emergence of new viruses in sub-Saharan Africa, his eyes on the road that wound through the picturesque scenery of the East Neuk. As he turned off towards the fishing village of Cellardyke, the familiar pips announced the four o’clock news.

The comforting voice of the newsreader began the bulletin. ‘The convicted serial killer and former TV chat show host Jacko Vance has begun his appeal against conviction. Vance, who once held the British record for the javelin, was given a life sentence at his trial eighteen months ago for the murder of a police officer. The appeal is expected to last for two days.

‘Police appealed for calm in Northern Ireland tonight …’ The words continued, but Tony wasn’t listening any longer. One last hurdle and then it would finally be over. One more anxiety would, he hoped fervently, be laid to rest. Intellectually, he knew there was no chance of Vance’s appeal succeeding. But while it was pending, there would always be that niggle of uncertainty. He’d helped put Vance away, but the arrogant killer had always maintained he would find a loophole that would set him free. Tony hoped the road to freedom was only a figment of Vance’s imagination.