Now, once again, he parked out of sight some distance from his target property and made his way through the shadows towards it. Ah, the freedom of the night!

It occurred to him that it had been almost three weeks since he’d been inside a house. Now, like an addict desperate for a fix, he craved that powerful feeling of complete control that penetrating someone else’s private and personal space conferred.

He was a few doors away when he saw a man approaching from the opposite direction, and he stood in the shadows, his back against a wall. It was a late-night dog walker, probably some insomniac using Fido as an excuse to walk himself tired. Dogs could be a problem with their highly developed sense of smell. They would know he was there, however much he kept out of sight. It was whether they chose to acknowledge his presence that was the problem. Thankfully, this pooch was more interested in other smells.

Ratty took a deep breath and slipped into the garden of Peartree Cottage.

The window above the conservatory roof was open, as it had been the night before. Together with the convenient drainpipe, the window ledges and the tiled roof on the garden room, getting in would be a doddle.

He was about to spring forward and scale the wall when he felt a sudden pressure against his Adam’s apple, closing his windpipe, stifling him. He struggled to breathe, clawing at this thing tightening around his throat. The night grew blacker as consciousness faded. The dark hours, Ratty’s safe place, were not so safe after all.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

As Jackman drove into the police station car park, a marked car flew out past him and headed off down the road. Then the figures of Stacey and Jay came hurrying towards him.

‘Glad you’re here, sir,’ panted Stacey. ‘We’ve just had a call that a body’s been discovered in a cottage garden in Welby Road, Saltern. From the description, we believe it could be Ratty Jones. We’re attending. Will you come, sir?’

‘Of course. I’ll see you there.’ He got back in the car and called Marie, glancing across at her motorbike parked in its usual spot.

‘Morning, boss. Overslept, have we?’

He chuckled. ‘No, we have not. I’m downstairs in the car. Someone suspected to be Ratty Jones has been found dead in a garden in Welby Road. Coming?’

In seconds, she was hurrying out through the back door. ‘Dead? As in an accident? Did he finally lose his footing clambering up someone’s roof?’

‘No information as yet. But with everything else that’s going on, I’m not even daring to make a guess at what’s happened to him.’

They found out soon enough. Dr Mason was already there.