She found a terrible hurt inside her. She was dreaming, wasn’t she? She’d had dreams like this in the last few days. This was hurting her with hope. ‘But—’

‘I didn’t want you just to open the front door and see—’

‘Where are you? Are you outside my house?’

‘It’s me, love. I’ve been waiting outside, wondering how to do this. I didn’t want you to open the front door and see me and be shocked by—’ But she’d dropped the phone and was grabbing at the chain and bolt on the door and she flung it open—

There he stood. In someone else’s clothes, but it was him. She reached out, threw a hand at him, expecting somehow to find nothing there. He grabbed it. He pulled her to him. He let her look into his face. He made her look into his face.

All the ability dropped from her lower body and she fell into him. She was … so furious at him. So enormously angry. This was too big … this was too big an impossibility.

‘Daddy!’ said Jessica, coming out to see them, pleased that he was home and nothing more.

Sarah looked to her, and then back at Quill’s face. He was still there.

Quill held out a hand from holding Sarah up. Jessica took it.

‘I went on a long journey,’ he said to her. ‘I came back.’

*   *   *

Sefton had one and a half days of solid sleep. Joe took time off work to look after him. He woke with the smell of a natural, early autumn coming through the window. ‘The centre held,’ he said, his voice a croak.

‘What?’ Joe had entered the bedroom with two cups of tea.

‘You said that was what crime fiction was about.’

‘Did I? It’s W.B. Yeats.’

‘Okay.’

‘They’ve found the Ripper’s body,’ said Joe.

Sefton hadn’t managed to tell his boyfriend anything about the ending of the case before collapsing with exhaustion. Now he frowned, unable to process that. ‘What?’

‘Bloke dressed in the costume, left a suicide note, a full confession. All the murders were on Vincent’s orders, he hid among the ranks of the Toffs but he hated them, and when the guilt became too much he killed Vincent then himself. Nice handwriting, apparently. He includes details of the murders, which the police – not your lot – are saying indicates it must all be true.’

Sefton sipped his tea and could only shake his head again. He had no idea what that meant.

*   *   *