Hitchens tilted his head on one side to look at the photograph of the victim from a different angle. It didn’t seem to tell him anything new.

‘That’s about it,’ he said. ‘We’re no nearer to filling in her past history. Or to tracing any personal contacts, now the famous Dougie from Glasgow has proved mythical.’

‘Have we talked to everyone in her address book?’

‘Almost everyone. One or two companies that are listed have gone out of business. The odd thing is that her book only dates from the day she moved into Bain House. Apart from the solicitor and the estate agent, nobody we’ve spoken to had any contact with her before November last year.’

‘Did any of these individuals detect an accent?’

‘Only those who were offered a leading question by the officer interviewing them. In other words, if they were asked whether Miss Shepherd had a Scottish accent, they agreed she might have done. Otherwise, they had no suggestions to offer.’

‘Grice has a lot to answer for.’

‘Agreed. But I don’t think it would make much difference in this case. None of them could really agree on her appearance or manner either. One said Miss Shepherd had a nice smile, another said she was very reserved and never smiled at all. We’ve had a lot of different estimates of her age, too. You’d hardly think they’d met the same person.’

‘Well, a harmless middle-aged woman – who’d take much notice of her, unless she did something to draw attention to herself?’

‘And she didn’t do that.’

Hitchens spun round and looked at Fry. ‘A harmless middle-aged woman that no one takes any notice of. Do you think you’ll end up like that one day, Diane?’

‘Hardly.’

‘Why not? We all get middle-aged, don’t we?’

‘The key word is “harmless”,’ said Fry.

The DI laughed. ‘You’re right. I can’t see anyone not noticing you, no matter how old you get.’

‘Did we get anything from her contacts list?’

‘Well, her dentist can tell us that Rose Shepherd had a few previous fillings. Her GP prescribed her Nitrazepam for her sleeping problems. And the garage can tell us what the emissions were like on her Volvo. Pick the bones out of that, if you can.’

‘Why did she have trouble sleeping, I wonder?’

‘Who can say?’

‘Well, at least we have a confirmation of her ID from the dental records. We don’t have to wait for the GP to get back.’

Hitchens opened the file. ‘One thing we did find in the house was the receipt for her car. It was bought from a Volvo dealer in Chesterfield and delivered to Bain House a few days after Miss Shepherd moved in. The receipt gives the recorded mileage at the time of sale, and we checked it against the current reading. She did about three hundred miles in a year. She was the proverbial careful lady owner.’

‘My God, she hardly went anywhere,’ said Fry.

‘She had no one to visit, did she?’

‘Apparently not.’

He raised his face to drink in the sounds. Cars and motorbikes; thumping music from the pub, the thud of a diesel exhaust. There were loud voices as a crowd of youths and girls queued to get into Brody’s nightclub on the top floor of the Pavilion. Laughing, shrieking, squealing. The noise echoed off the front of the building, allowing him to bathe in the clamour.

He was waiting in the bus pull-in near the tufa fountain,talking to the fish as they popped up to see if he’dbrought them any food. Hissing, splashing, plopping.But he mustn’t stay here too long, or a policeman wouldcome his way, suspecting that he planned to stalk someridiculous teenage girl in a short skirt. Now, then. Now then. Move along.

He laughed. It was so funny, the image of thepoliceman, thumping about in his boots, creaking in hisyellow plastic jacket, the radio squawking constantly inhis ear, sending him messages, messages, more messages,telling him where to go and not to go, instructions andorders, comments and commands, barking and babbling.How did he stand it? The policeman must be deaf. Deafin his mind. It was so funny that he laughed again.Chuckle, chortle, snigger.

But he knew immediately he’d laughed out loud. Hecould tell by the faces of the nightclub queue, turnedtowards him in a glare of light. Derisive, hostile. Someonetittered, someone jeered. Something jabbered and mutteredat the back of his brain. It was time to be elsewhere.

He turned, hunching his shoulders inside his overcoat,and walked towards the Promenade Fish Bar. Hewas following the lure of a rumbling motorcycle engine,a two-tone horn on a car racing up the road. Furtheron, he could hear the sounds of an amusement arcade.Rattle, crash, boom. They wouldn’t let him in, but hecould stand outside and enjoy the buzz of the traffic, too.

Night-time was the most difficult. There was too littlenoise. Always too little. He was sure he wasn’t alone infeeling most vulnerable at night. Darkness could hideanything, couldn’t it? It was populated with fantasiesand horrors, ghosts and demons, and all the other fearsthat chattered like monkeys in the corners of his mind.Not to mention the burglars and rapists, the crazedaxemen muttering in the alleys, drawn to the sound ofhuman breathing like moths to a flame.

Every time he went to sleep, he knew he might wake up to a presence in the room, a voice congealed into reality. He pictured the moment when the breathing he could hear was not his own, when the shadow behind the door began to move, when an arm brushed against the wall, a whisper of fabric in the silence and a hoarse mumble of his name, before the final lunge of the knife. He imagined those last moments so often that he could feel his limbs tangle in the sheets as he thrashed to escape the blade. Slash, stab, rip. There, what did I tell you?

A hospital room was no better. The sounds that drifteddown corridors during the night were strange and incomprehensible.Like bedlam, the music of the madhouse.Howl, roar, bark at the moon. And not only sounds, butsmells. They could blend in the mind like a thick soup,swirling and forming pictures that he’d rather not seeinside his head. There were half-spoken memories thathe’d carry for ever, recollections of unseen people discussinghim, their voices hushed and murmuring, commentingon his state of health, using words that were unknownto him. Planning his disposal, as if he were an animal.

Of course, it was stupid to fear the unknown. People who did that were just projecting their own ugly thoughts on to a blank mask, like throwing handfuls of mud at a marble statue. Why live in terror of the unfamiliar? Why let the silent, dripping darkness of the imagination displace the wicked reality?

Those were the things that made other people afraid,but he knew he wasn’t like them. He’d been made differentlyfrom the rest of humanity; his mind was constructedof a glittering, fragile crystal instead of some greasy clay,scooped from the earth. His consciousness rang like abell, echoing and tinkling, speaking his name, callinghim softly, tolling with disdain.

Some of these places would be closing for the night soon. Matlock Bath would empty, and he’d have to go home. He’d have to face another night, counting to himself to fill the silent hours, reciting the alphabet, and cursing, cursing … One, two, three, and DAMN, DAMN, DAMN!

He didn’t care about the unknown. Not in the least.He knew exactly what to be afraid of, and it was somethingall too real. He heard it wailing in the distance.It was difficult to drown out, even now. He knew howdangerous it could be, and where it would come from.He just didn’t know when it would finally draw nearand speak.