With her mother and Izzy out together for the day, the house was quiet and the hours leading up to the re-enactment bled by. On any other day Stevie would have been glad of the precious time, but now she found herself at a loss. In the kitchen she turned up the oldies radio station as far as it would go and tackled the housework, anything to block the disturbing thoughts swirling in her head. Jeez, was there anything she wasn’t worrying about? Izzy, Tye, De Vakey, the re-enactment. What was happening to her? How could she have let her life get so out of control? And Monty. Oh God, Monty, she said to the kitchen sink. You seem to have got yourself into as much of a mess as I have. What a pair we are.

She scrubbed the bath and the toilet, changed the sheets and even made cupcakes for next week’s play lunches. She snapped the radio off when Jim Morrison began to sing about killers on the road with brains squirming like toads. The silence almost swallowed her.

***

She’d still not heard from Monty when she arrived that evening at the ops van with only just enough time to scramble into her Linda Royce outfit. The denim miniskirt was tight and restricting, the shoes cut into her feet and forced her to walk with a painful wobble. After loosening her hair to let it flare around her shoulders, she trowelled on the make-up, coating her lips with layer after layer of lipstick and gloss.

A technician wired her with the mike and they did a test run. Satisfied that she had effective communication, she buttoned up the figure-hugging cardigan and stepped out from the van into the street.

Someone whistled. Startled, she turned to see Barry giving her the thumbs up. When he approached, he was all business.

‘Now don’t worry about a thing Stevie, everything’s under control. We have cameras on the crowd and armed cops out of sight watching your every move.’

She’d never realised how reassuring Barry’s voice could sound.

‘You do just what Royce did. Step out from the photographer’s place and start heading to the bus stop. See that old guy standing with Wayne?’

Stevie squinted into the floodlit crowd of onlookers lining the temporary barricades. Wayne was standing with a dishevelled old man with a long white beard and a tasselled red hat that gave him the look of a malnourished Father Christmas.

‘That’s Joshua Cuthbert, the dero whose prints were on the bottle. Wayne’s about to move him into position. We think he saw something that night but his mind’s so pickled it’s going to need a good jolt.’

‘What happens when I reach the bus stop?’

‘Pause for a moment or two, relax, then start walking again; be yourself, as if the re-enactment is over and you just want to stretch your legs. Keep walking till you get to the alleyway about thirty metres down the street then duck into it. If De Vakey’s right, our guy will be watching. If he is, and he sees you disappear like that, he won’t be able to help himself. Don’t worry, we’ve installed surveillance cameras and the TRG are close by. Oh, and before I forget, here, take this.’ The dead weight of the Glock dropped into her open bag.

‘Ready then?’ Angus moved over to them.

Barry nodded. ‘Yep. Good luck, Stevie,’ he called as Angus took her by the arm to the door of the photographic studio.

‘When the guy with the clapperboard says action, step out of the door and begin your walk.’ Angus stood in the doorway with her. ‘Don’t look at the camera or any of the onlookers, okay? They want this edited and ready for tomorrow’s early news, so try not to stuff up.’

She was still focusing her glare on Angus’s retreating back when another figure sidled up next to her. ‘Hello, I just wanted to wish you good luck.’

Stevie raised her chin, folded her arms and fixed her eyes on the man with the clapperboard.

‘Don’t I even get an acknowledgement?’ De Vakey said.

‘Unfaithful bastard,’ she said through the corner of her mouth. ‘Did Wayne give you Vivienne’s message?’

‘He did.’ He hesitated. ‘You don’t need a wedding ring to be unfaithful, Stevie. My wife and I—’

‘I know, I know, she never understood you.’ She allowed a bitter pause. ‘Don’t insult my intelligence, De Vakey.’

‘Lights, camera, talent, action!’ The man with the clapperboard shouted.

Through sheer strength of will, Stevie put De Vakey to the back of her mind and stepped into the street as Linda Royce.

How had the murdered girl seen it? An eighteen-year-old would surely feel wary about being alone in the dark at this time, or was she now complacent? She might not have been jumping at shadows as she walked, or hugging the brick wall to keep out of the wind and the roar of traffic as Stevie was now. Her thoughts were probably miles away from danger, thinking about the shoot. Had the photographer been pleased with her, had her make-up been okay? Maybe she’d been preoccupied with thoughts of her boyfriend, their skiing holiday and the money they’d saved.

Wispy fingers of fog tickled at Stevie’s face as she walked. Last Sunday had been clear, but now it was like seeing everything through gauze. Even the orange of the streetlights seemed muffled. Linda wouldn’t have had to take such careful footsteps. The lumps and bumps of the footpath would have been more obvious, the city buildings more defined, the lights of the passing traffic not so blurred.

God but her shoes were killing her. She stooped to loosen one of the faux leopard-skin straps. As she straightened, she shivered and pulled her cardigan closer to her body. Was he watching her now?

She smelled Joshua Cuthbert before she saw him. He was leaning into the arch in the wall where De Vakey had discovered the discarded bottle. After a moment she heard his footsteps shuffling behind her and risked a glance back. He stopped walking when he came to a rubbish skip, squatted on his haunches and began to roll a cigarette. This must have been his vantage point the previous Sunday: the killer would never have known he was there.

Stevie reached the bus stop without incident and lingered there for some minutes as per instructions. Then, exchanging thumbs up with the film crew as if it was a wrap, she took off her shoes and replaced them with the trainers she’d left on the bus stop bench.

It was comforting to be herself again; the re-enactment stage was over, let the games begin. She held her breath and walked to the mouth of the alleyway. Was he here? Had he already separated himself from the crowd to wait for her here in the shadows? De Vakey’s voice echoed unwelcome in her head. A female police officer, this could be just the challenge he’s after. She remembered the flush of animation as he spoke and then Tye’s words, worse because they were the verbalisation of her own irrational suspicions. Maybe it takes one to know one, have you thought about that? A shiver scampered up her backbone.

She turned into the alley. It was long, narrow and dark, with little illumination filtering in from the main street. With visibility so poor her ears strained for any incongruous sound. Even her muted footsteps sounded loud as they bounced back at her from the walls. The putrid smell of garbage mingled with the fog and the smoke of her breath. Her pace slowed as she tried to see past the shadows of empty crates and garbage bins.

A noise, the clanking of tin.

A rat scampered for safety into the shadows. ‘Shit,’ she exhaled into her collar mike.

She skirted an overflowing drain, only to slap into another puddle; oily water sloshed around her feet and splashed a riffling newspaper. The end of the alley was in sight now. The lights were getting brighter and she could see the street ahead clearly now.

Almost safe.

She wasn’t sure what came first, the hand on her arm or the click of the spotlight. Whatever, she reacted on sheer instinct, slamming her elbow into her assailant’s side then pivoting around to smack him on the side of his face with her weighted handbag. At the same time something resembling a dead animal was loosed from his head and sent flying across the breadth of the alleyway.