Saturday, August 17, 1991; 10:00

Next morning, Laura Foster had her fingerprints inked at Lee police station. Forensics bumped her up to the top of their list of suspects to be eliminated from the crime scene.

I was certain they’d find her prints somewhere on or near a door. Marion’s spirit had been telling me this since day one. I’d failed to make the connection because Laura had only just drifted onto our radar. This had to be the breakthrough we craved. We’d have to work out later Laura’s motivations for helping her sister murder an innocent woman, and who had provided the muscle. The bottom line was, if we could place Laura at the scene, we could take both deadly sisters off our streets.

Most crucially of all, if we found irrefutable evidence that the Foster sisters murdered Marion, then I wasn’t to blame for the deaths of Samantha and Jazmine Bisset. My insides still ached with the dread that I’d missed a Lone Wolf Killer in the ‘unsolved cases’ paperwork, leaving him free to butcher the Bissets.

It still troubled me that Samantha and Jazmine hadn’t appeared to me after I attended their murder scene. I’d have to figure out why later … Nailing the Foster sisters would have to be enough for now.

As we waited for news from forensics, Shep outlined our case against Karen and Laura. He couldn’t have looked more supremely all-knowing had he just lugged a pair of freshly inscribed tablets down Mount Sinai.

‘Bethan Trott now says she didn’t see Laura Foster on the day of Marion Ryan’s murder until six o-five p.m. The Foster sisters merely told her that they’d been together in her room at the Churchill Clinic between five and six p.m. Nobody actually saw them in her room. As for the phantom shopping trip to Blackheath, Karen Foster’s cash card had been used near the Pines residential care home – six miles away – at four ten that afternoon. They have no record of buying anything in Blackheath. No one saw them in Blackheath. In short, we’ve obliterated the sisters’ alibis.

‘We believe that Karen left the Pines at four p.m., got some cash out, drove home to pick up the murder weapon, Laura and a set of fresh clothes which she placed in a black gym bag, then drove to Sangora Road to wait for Marion.

‘We have a witness who saw a woman aged twenty-five to thirty and a white man coming out of 21 Sangora Road at the time of the murder. This witness says that the woman was carrying a black gym bag.

‘We have video evidence showing that the journey from the murder scene to the Pines residential care home at that time of day takes, on average, just under twelve minutes. The Fosters and an accomplice murdered Marion between five forty-two and five forty-five – remember, the pathologist estimated that the attack took two to three minutes – changed their clothes and drove back to the Pines where they were seen separately by employees at about six p.m. Bethan Trott says that Laura left a black gym bag overnight in her room. She looked inside the top of the bag and saw a red t-shirt. She claims she didn’t inspect the rest of the bag’s contents but we will argue that it contained the murder weapon and their blood-soaked clothes. They collected this bag the day after the murder, presumably to destroy the incriminating clothes and to clean the murder weapon.

‘We believe that the weapon used was the steel blade found in the Fosters’ garage yesterday. Remember, the girls’ father, Terry, was unable to confirm that the blade had been there on the day after the murder. The pathologist has confirmed that this blade is consistent with Marion’s injuries.

‘Most convincing of all, we’ve got motive. Peter was sleeping with Karen until two weeks before Marion’s murder, when he ended their affair and announced that Marion was pregnant. Karen is the classic woman scorned. Laura … well, sibling loyalty? Maybe she thought they were just going to scare Marion, rough her up a bit? Who knows? We’ll have to figure out her motivations once we prove that she was at the murder scene.’

Almost on cue, a records clerk walked in and handed him a piece of paper. The room sat forward as one and held its breath. This was one of life’s penalty shoot-out moments: everything I cared about in the universe had now been reduced to that single piece of quivering paper. If it confirmed Laura’s fingerprints at the scene, my life would never be the same again. It would be proof – surely – that I had some inexplicable hotline to those funsters, the recently-murdered.

‘They’ve found no matches,’ mumbled Shep, blankly. My heart landed in lumps on the floor, like shot birds.

‘Are you sure they checked both sides of both doors?’ I said, a little desperately.

‘And the handrail, and the interior walls. They checked everywhere. There isn’t anything there.’

I didn’t believe in much anymore: religion, politics, policing – even romance – seemed corrupt, self-serving, narcissistic exercises, fuelled by human failure rather than strength. But I had allowed myself to believe in this ‘gift’, hoping, somehow, that it would help me believe again: in the afterlife, in policing, in saving people. In love itself. The only other verse I ever remembered from Gabby’s book of bitter Philip Larkin poetry sprang to mind:

But superstition, like belief, must die.

And what remains when disbelief has gone?

Grass, weedy pavement, brambles, buttress, sky.

Shep refused to let this setback upstage his moment: ‘Listen, I’m confident we’ve got enough to charge Karen Foster. Even if we can’t place Laura at the scene, she must know what happened that afternoon. Let’s get her in for a grilling. If we apply enough pressure, she’ll make a mistake or break down and confess. Then we’ll have them both, bang to rights.

‘I’m going to present our case against Karen to the CPS lawyer now. He’s up the corridor waiting, so let’s see what he says. Regardless of what he decides, well done, team. Go and spend the rest of your Saturday with your loved ones. Keep your pagers on, in case the lawyer has questions or wants anything triple-checked. See you in the morning.’

A ticking bomb wouldn’t have cleared the room quicker. I sat alone, empty, idiotic.

We didn’t have a case. I didn’t have a gift.

I realised I couldn’t carry on like this. I needed to quit therapy, quit drinking, quit the job: quit consorting with dead bodies.

Shep reappeared and started packing up his briefcase.

‘Well?’ I said.

‘He’s a lawyer, Lynch, they charge by the hour. He’s going to take his time.’

‘Will we know today?’

‘If he’s the first honest one I’ve ever come across, then maybe. It’s a fucking miracle we got hold of him at all on a weekend. Listen, there’s nothing more you can do now. Go home, get some rest, spend some time with your girlfriend. Come back fighting fit tomorrow.’

‘I wouldn’t mind waiting around, Guv, in case the lawyer does come back. And they’re still checking the prints from the Pines’ staff. That might throw up something.’

‘Well page me if there’s any developments,’ he said, grabbing his briefcase and coat, ‘I’m off to win hearts and minds.’

I watched him bustling towards the stairs, all business. Fintan popped into my mind – another Riddler, constantly hinting at bigger, mysterious, behind-the-scenes plays. At that precise moment, I wanted to know what Shep was up to more than anything else in the world.

I sprinted to the window overlooking the station’s front entrance. Shep came out and turned right – away from the car park. Wherever he was going, it was on foot. He took another sharp right onto Lavender Hill.

I vaulted down the stairs three at a time, strode outside and turned onto Lavender. In the distance I could see Shep stomping down the hill towards Clapham Junction station with the stilted urgency of a fleeing assassin. He walked past the station on his right, then crossed the road. The first time he looked around, I was behind a gaggle of people two traffic lights back. I couldn’t tell if he’d seen me. I had to run now to have any chance of catching him. I turned into Strathblaine Road and saw him fifty yards ahead. It’s a quiet residential street with no cover. If Shep looked around, he’d see me for sure. I stopped and willed him towards a gentle bend in the road: ‘Don’t look back, don’t look back.’