Costain and Quill looked down at the butchered body of Russell Vincent. He had been slashed many times across the chest and neck, and the space between his legs was torn open. His dead eyes looked up in horror and lack of understanding. He was surrounded by a pool of his own blood and by a pool of gently billowing silver. They’d followed the Twitter trail here and, in the absence of any other officers, would surely fail to create any sort of barrier between the crime scene and the news teams that were bound to start arriving shortly.

‘Was that what you wanted?’ Costain asked Quill.

Quill couldn’t find an answer. What he wanted was for there to be a law that applied equally to Vincent and to himself, to those who saw themselves above it, and to those who enforced it. He’d had no other ideas of how to bring this to an end. His only consolation was how empty it left him feeling. He hoped he hadn’t done this as the result of a cycle of abuse. ‘If only this had been a Ripper we could have caught, that we could have shown to London in handcuffs. There’s no reason now for Londoners to think the killings will stop. And when the media hear the Ripper’s killed Russell Vincent, it’ll increase the sense of chaos exponentially. How do we prove that the law still works and turn this shit around?’

There was a noise from behind them. Lofthouse arrived. She was staring in amazement at Quill.

‘Yeah,’ he said. He wondered if she’d hug him or something.

She looked him up and down and finally nodded. ‘Right,’ she said.

‘Indeed.’

‘Good,’ she said, then seemed to decide she had to put a stop to this unseemly outpouring of emotion. ‘There’s been a vote of no confidence. There’s going to be a general election.’

‘What about Vincent’s allies in the military?’ said Costain.

‘The military are actually containing a lot of the far right protests,’ said Lofthouse. ‘The death of Vincent, which has now hit the media as the biggest headline of the lot, means that a lot of people who were thinking of acting rashly have now thought better of it.’

Costain’s phone rang, and he answered it. He suddenly looked urgent when he heard who was on the other end, held his hand up for silence. He seemed to be deciding what to say. ‘No,’ he said, speaking carefully. ‘I’m another police officer, but DI Quill is right here beside me. I’ll hand you over.’ He mouthed the name of the caller as he handed Quill the phone.

Quill took it. ‘Hello Mary,’ he said.

*   *   *