‘Wow,’ I said, as she sat down, ‘and the food looks tasty too.’

‘Stop it,’ she giggled. ‘Now, tell me all about your day.’

I looked down at the plate, registered the ribs and managed, somehow, not to spew.

‘Are you okay?’ she demanded.

In a bid to distract myself from recalling the Bisset horror show, I focused on Peter’s interview and the bunny boiler antics of Karen Foster. Once we’d exhausted that subject, our unplanned date began to feel a little awkward. I realised that we’d already wrung dry all our news from the last three years. The only subject that remained unresolved was our future. Did we have one? We had hit an impasse. I had to find out how she felt.

‘So, what are you planning for the rest of the summer?’ I tried.

Somehow, she wriggled free of this and steered the conversation back to Marion and her post-death visits. I’d found her initial interest in the topic flattering, but now it was all we – she – wanted to talk about. It reminded me of the time she became obsessed with the murder of Choker Meehan’s mother; how she hassled me for months to get Fintan to pull all the newspaper cuttings for her.

I was growing jealous of my dubious ‘gift’ – it was getting more attention than me.

She seemed particularly fascinated now by my daylight visions of Marion at both Sangora and Strathblaine Roads.

‘You need to stop going to that road, never mind the murder scene. It’ll drive you spare,’ she said, and I had to smile. ‘Drive you spare’ already seemed such an outmoded teenage expression. I realised that the trauma of her ordeal had stunted Eve emotionally so that, in effect, she was still seventeen – suspended in 1988 like an ant in amber. I suddenly felt overcome with pity.

‘And what did your psychologist say about it?’

‘Oh well, that’s another story. It’s the most excited I’ve seen her. She wants to try to prove that my subconscious is using dream imagery to crack the case. In the scientific world, this could be quite a big deal, apparently.’

‘You never mentioned it was a she,’ said Eve, eyeing me suspiciously. Another realisation: she was now a professional victim, always seeing and interpreting things in ways that made her the wounded party – deceived, wronged, cheated. What an effective distraction from looking within.

‘Didn’t I? She’s about forty. Nice old dear.’

I wasn’t sure why I’d said that.

‘What’s her name?’

‘Lilian. Lilian Smith. Why do you need to know?’

‘I’m only asking. Jesus, why are you so defensive?’

I was trying to think of an answer when the doorbell’s electroconvulsive buzz shook my bones.

‘Shall we ignore that?’ I said.

‘It could be important,’ she frowned.

I went to the door, booting the post to one side to open it.

‘Hi,’ said Gabby, reading my startled face.

‘Hi,’ I said, wondering if she could see inside.

‘Are you not going to ask me in?’ she smiled. I noticed she was wearing more make-up than usual. And a dress.

‘Yeah, erm, of course,’ I said, taking a step out into the hallway, half closing the door behind me.

‘Just to let you know, I’ve got someone staying at the moment. An old friend from home,’ I said quietly.

‘Aren’t you going to introduce us?’ she said, her smile now quizzical, curious. I had two choices: run inside and slam the door or let her in. I stood to one side.

As Gabby tiptoed over the mail into the sitting room, I added quickly: ‘She’s made dinner actually, just to say thanks.’

As we entered the room, I saw it through Gabby’s eyes and knew I should have slammed that front door.

‘Hi,’ smiled Eve, a little triumphantly, I thought, not bothering to get up.

Gabby spent what seemed an age taking it all in.

‘Candles,’ she said, finally.

‘Oh God it’s not how it looks …’ I said, each word shrivelling faster than the last, ‘Eve’s staying for a few nights until she gets herself sorted, isn’t that right, Eve?’

Eve didn’t say a word.

‘Perhaps you could give me a call some time,’ said Gabby, ‘when you’re not busy.’

She turned to Eve: ‘It was nice meeting you, Eve.’

Eve pulled a ‘yeah, whatever’ shrug. Gabby turned, marched out and gave the front door fittings their sternest test yet.

‘Well thanks a lot,’ I said, ‘you could have said something there to help me out.’

‘I didn’t know who she was. You didn’t introduce us.’

‘Oh and I suppose Fintan didn’t tell you all about her. He tells you everything else.’

‘You didn’t tell me though, did you Donal?’ she spat, slamming her cutlery on the table, storming into my bedroom and creating another Force 10 door quake.

‘Don’t worry, I’ll take the couch,’ I shouted after her.

As I scraped our aborted rib dinner into the bin bag, I spotted a pink overturned Post-it note deep in the mulch. I managed to fish it out. ‘Gabby called, coming over at 9’ it said, in Eve’s unmistakably neat print.

What the hell was she playing at? Did she really want us – me – that badly?

As I blew out the candles, my brain suddenly bit on a thought and refused to let go. Was I as bad as Peter Ryan? The same as Peter Ryan? Shep’s words boomed between my ears:

Oh he’s the classic Golden Boy Irishman, adored by his dear old mum.

I would have slept with Eve last night, had she let me.

He’ll use and abuse women until he finds one who’ll adore him the same.

Could I look in the mirror and say I was any better than Peter Ryan?

I dismissed the idea, flopped onto the couch, opened a Shiraz and wallowed in grape-based guilt. The Bissets were coming tonight: fuck it, bring them on. I could take the terror of another ghostly encounter, if it got me any closer to the truth behind their murders.

Chapter 31

Trinity Road, South London

Thursday, August 15, 1991; 08:00

Samantha and Jazmine didn’t show.

I spent the night wondering why I wasn’t being accosted by their tormented spirits. I came up with two possible explanations:

A: I’d been deluding myself about having some sort of ‘gift’: I was simply a borderline alcoholic insomniac with a history of inexplicable mental and physical collapses.

B: They didn’t need to come to me because I was already on the trail of their killer.

I favoured A, dreaded B. Did their no-show confirm what I feared most: that they’d been murdered by the same person who killed Marion?

As I walked to work, Samantha and Jazmine winked at me from every window. They were blonde, pretty, murdered in their own home – all ingredients guaranteed to secure them blanket newspaper and TV coverage.

The red-tops screamed ‘serial killer’ with undisguised glee. The young, pretty women of London were not safe in their own homes, and this ‘monster’ would come for their ‘tots’ too.

The incident room seemed strangely deserted. Mick warned me that Shep had been summoned to the Yard for a ‘crisis meeting’. ‘I’d make myself scarce if I were you.’

Before I left last night, Shep had flushed some judge out of his Mayfair drinking club to sign a search warrant. At daybreak, the Foster family home in Lee, South East London got the knock.

A forensics team was busy taking fingerprints from all current and recent employees of the Pines residential care home. How I craved a result there.

Two teams had spent the evening going door-to-door on Sangora Road. Mick told me to get stuck into their reports.

I quickly realised that London must be the best place in the world to get away with murder. The citizens of this city simply don’t look at other people, let alone observe their behaviour. We avoid eye contact because that eye might belong to a psychopath actively seeking someone to batter. Having read the blood-curdling contents of London’s unsolved crime files, I couldn’t blame them.