He got out a paper hanky and dabbed at his eyes and nose.

‘We’re both so grateful to you for what you did,’ he said to Jasmine. ‘And so sorry about your uncle.’

Jasmine nodded her acknowledgement. Catherine could tell she was holding back tears of her own.

‘And get your bill in right away,’ Neil told her. ‘Don’t stand on ceremony. The best money we’ve ever spent.’

‘Never mind about the money,’ Jasmine said softly. ‘It wasn’t about that.’

Catherine recognised that the girl was a little overcome.

‘She’ll send you an invoice,’ she said. ‘I’ll make sure of it. Gratitude and warm wishes don’t pay the rent,’ she told Jasmine with a friendly smile.

The girl nodded, a wry look of self-reproach on her face.

‘Yeah,’ she agreed. ‘Glen said something similar.’

Which quite wiped the smile off Catherine’s face.

‘You know,’ Laura said, twisting the key in the ignition as Catherine pulled on her seat belt, ‘all it takes is somebody to just mention that man’s name and you look like you’re going to punch a wall. It’s a bit scary.’

Catherine glanced back towards the house, where she could see Jasmine still chatting to Neil Caldwell at the open front door.

‘Not as scary as I find Fallan,’ she replied. ‘We’re talking here about a man whose reputation is so grim in certain circles that last week he frightened off an armed gunman using a mobile phone.’

‘Yeah, but it looks to me like these days he’s on the side of the angels.’

‘My fear is more derived from his abilities than which team he’s currently playing for, because that can change: what he’s capable of does not. Once a killer, always a killer,’ she added, with a conviction borne more of fear that it was true than of certainty.

‘It’s no wonder. The more I hear about his dad …’ Laura gave a shudder. ‘A pure psycho.’

‘Yeah, well, there you go,’ Catherine replied. ‘Like father, like son.’

Laura’s hand had been hovering over the gearstick, but she withdrew it and turned to look at Catherine.

‘You really hate him, don’t you?’ she asked. ‘I mean, not just fear. True hate. Did you know him back when, before he disappeared?’

Catherine let out a sigh, buying time as she gathered her thoughts. She wasn’t going there, not with her DI, and not now. Laura deserved an answer, though, because what she had said was true.

‘I encountered him fleetingly, a long time ago,’ she replied. ‘He was a nobody, a small cog in a very nasty machine, so oblivious or indifferent to the damage being done that he doesn’t even remember. I don’t hate him for that. I hate what he represents.’