‘You and I have lots of catching up to do,’ he said, breathing heavily.

She flopped back against the wall, relieved to see his anger tempered again. ‘Tell me more about the murdered prostitutes.’ She had to keep the conversation away from herself.

‘I made the slappers look like the work of a sexual pervert. I even took “trophies”, like the book says, though I chucked the hair and jewellery into the river. It was touch and go for a while, my hair on that first one could have been my downfall. Just goes to show it’s not what you know. Baggly cleared that little glitch up for me and after that I used the wetsuit. The paint’s an added security, the chemical properties in it destroy just about anything else I might’ve left behind, skin cells, etcetera. I thought the commissioner’s hair on Royce’s body was a good touch too, don’t you? Keyes stole his hairbrush for me—my old partnership comes in very handy when I need things done from the inside. I’d’ve liked to have seen Baggly’s reaction to that little trick, I never told him about that, wanted to keep him on the edge of his seat, the cowardly perverted creep. He knew we had to cover up the KP murders, but he had no idea what else I was up to.’

‘So you’ve not only got Keyes and Thrummel in your pocket, you’ve got Baggly too. Clever,’ Stevie said.

Tye smiled. ‘Yeah. Then after years of thinking about you and the mess you’d got me into, I decided it was time for the so-called serial killer to make a return. There’ll be no one else after you, Stevie. What’s really funny is how easily you were all fooled, even the great De Vakey, and it was his books that gave me the idea in the first place.’

‘But why kill Royce, why Birkby?’

Stevie wondered if what she saw was a genuine shadow of regret passing over his face or just pretence. He shrugged. ‘I didn’t want to kill Linda, she was just a kid. I made sure it was quick and she didn’t suffer. I borrowed Baggly’s car, put on one of my old uniforms. Said her dad had taken a turn for the worse; that I’d been asked to pick her up and take her to the hospital to see him. She was quite a talker when she wasn’t scared shitless, her uncle was a retired cop y’know, she was very proud of him. We’d got to know each other quite well. I visited her in the cafe whenever I could, always made sure she served me. She was flattered. I flirted with her, she was an easy target: flirtatious, naive and trusting. I needed to kill her you see, to disguise the identity of my true target.’ He paused and ran his tongue over his lips. ‘You.’

The pounding of her heart seemed to come to an abrupt halt. She felt light-headed, as if her blood had already started to pool at the lowest point of gravity. She had to keep him talking. ‘Easeful Death. I never knew you were into poetry.’

‘Came across it in a poetry book when I was at school and always remembered it. Believe it or not, I hate to see things suffer, hated what your dad went through.’ He clicked his fingers. ‘Short and sharp, that’s what death should be. The girls were drugged up to their eyeballs, never knew what was going on. I did them a favour, I mean, who knows how they would’ve died when their time came.’ He paused. ‘See, there’s a lot of things you don’t know about me, Stevie, I’m a deep thinker, I’m a sensitive kinda guy. You should have given me more of a chance.’

For a moment anger overcame the fear. ‘You knocked me around, you raped me for God’s sake! What was I supposed to do?’

‘Mitigating circumstances, you were threatening me, you had to be taught a lesson. But it didn’t do much good, did it? You still didn’t learn; you still dobbed me in.’ He brushed her face with fingers rough as hessian. ‘But we had some good times didn’t we, babe?’

‘Yeah, good times till you realised you couldn’t get hold of my house, till you started your corruption racket in Vice, till you heard about my pending promotion, wanted those kinky photographic sessions—what was that all about? An attempt to get some kind of power over me?’

‘But you wanted to do those photos, deep down, I know you did. You were always so uptight, that was your problem, so busy keeping up with the boys you were afraid to let your feminine side shine. I posed Linda for you, Stevie. It was you I was thinking about. I even took the risk of coming back to take away the props, just so it would be perfect for you. Thought it might strike a chord—and it did, didn’t it? That’s exactly how I tried to get you to pose for me, remember?’ He sighed and shook his head. ‘Again, this all boils down to you.’

Stevie felt the tears well. She struggled against her bonds.

‘Then of course there was Birkby and Sparrow’s book—that fucking journalist never let up, the stupid cow. I saw her plotting and planning with the albino. I knew what they were up to. I followed her from the cafe and grabbed her in the back car park. The chloroform knocked her out before she even blinked.’

‘Oh yeah, the chloroform—where did you get it?’

‘There’s this vet I know. We did a swap, his chloroform for my ice—another little business of mine, appreciated by Thrummel too, by the way. The vet decided he needed a bit more variety in his life—you can only go so far with animal meds. What a dickhead, eh?’ Tye shook his head. ‘There’s just no accounting for taste.’

‘Why did you go to all the trouble of getting Michelle into the store? That was some kind of risk wasn’t it?’

‘Hey, why do they climb Everest? And of course there was the special bonus of putting your precious Monty in the frame for it. You gotta believe me, I didn’t get much pleasure in killing her, but I had to kill someone else, anyway. Bronze, silver, gold—get it?’ He drew in a breath and let it out slowly through thin, smiling lips. ‘Kinda fun really. I might not have enjoyed killing the others, but I know I’m going to enjoy you, long and slow. You’ll be my exception to the rule: you get the gold medal, baby.’

Stevie’s heart kick started with a jolt and she jerked her chin from his hand. ‘But Sparrow survived.’

‘So what? I learned about the safe while the bitch was begging for her life. You and Sparrow caught my boys by surprise. Bad luck the paddy wagon turned up before they could finish him off.’

‘He knows the truth.’

‘Without the documents, what can he prove? The woman was the brains behind the book. People might have believed her allegations, but who’d believe a ranting, white-faced idiot like Sparrow? Hell, even Baggly was confident enough to keep him on as a cleaner.’ He smiled. He was enjoying himself. ‘Any more questions? Any more delaying tactics? You know I have all the answers, Miz Super Cop.’

He was onto her, but still she racked her brains for more questions. Last time she’d seen Monty, he was planning on visiting Peter Sbresni. She took a punt. ‘What about Sbresni? Was he just a fall guy or is he in on it too?’

‘Sbresni knows nothing about me; he was following Baggly’s orders, and Baggly’s so fucking terrified of what I’ve got over him, he wouldn’t dare breathe a word.’

She didn’t know what else to say, she only knew that she had to keep stalling him. She grasped at one last straw. ‘You act like you have a conscience, Tye, that you didn’t really want to kill anyone. Where does Izzy come into this, how will it feel for the rest of your life to know that you’ve killed the mother of your child?’

She closed her eyes against the venom in his face. Oh God, why did she have to bring up Izzy?

‘Bitch! What do you take me for, a complete moron?’

His blow cracked her head back into the wall. She felt a slash of heat where the stitches burst open and a thick tide of blood streamed down the back of her neck.

Tye pushed himself up from the floor and paced. ‘I’ve spent the last ten minutes answering your questions. Now it’s time you answered mine.’

She stared back at him blankly. For several seconds he regarded her in angry silence. Then his face began to relax and, to her surprise, his laughter started bouncing back at her from the walls of the cavernous room.