They signed themselves in and Brenda Keys brought them up to speed. As she did so, a door opened along the corridor and a heavily built female uniformed constable with spikes of short black hair rising from her head, as if she had stuck her fingers into an electrical socket, ambled towards them with a genial smile

‘Constable Rowland, sir,’ she said. ‘Detective Superintendent Grace?’

‘Yes – and this is DS Branson.’

‘They’re in Interview One – only just started. The SOLO, DC Westmore, is talking to the victim and DS Robertson’s observing. Would you like to go into the observation room?’

‘Is there room for us both?’

‘I’ll put another chair in. Can I get you anything to drink?

‘I’d murder a coffee,’ Grace said. ‘Muddy, no sugar.’

Branson asked for a Diet Coke.

They followed the constable down the corridor, past doors marked Medical Examination Room, Meeting Room, then Interview Room.

A short distance along she opened another door with no sign on it and they went in. The observation room was a small space, with a narrow white worktop on which sat a row of computers. A flat-screen monitor was fixed to the wall, displaying the CCTV feed from the adjoining interview room. The Detective Sergeant who had first attended at the Metropole Hotel, a boyish-looking man in his late twenties with a shaven fuzz of fair hair, was seated at the desk, an open notebook in front of him and a bottle of water with the cap removed. He was wearing an ill-fitting grey suit and a purple tie with a massive knot, and he had the clammy pallor of a man fighting a massive hangover.

Grace introduced himself and Glenn, then they sat down, Grace on a hard secretarial swivel chair which the Constable had wheeled in.

The screen gave a static view of a small, windowless room furnished with a blue settee, a blue armchair and a small round table on which sat a large box of Kleenex. It was carpeted in a cheerless dark grey and the walls were painted a cold off-white. A second camera and a microphone were mounted high up.

The victim, a frightened-looking woman in her thirties, in a white towelling dressing gown with the letters MH monogrammed on the chest, sat, hunched up like a ball on the sofa, arms wrapped around her midriff. She was thin, with an attractive but pale face, and streaked mascara. Her long red hair was in a messy tangle.

Across the table from her sat DC Claire Westmore, the Sexual Offences Liaison Officer. She was mirroring the victim, sitting with the same posture, arms wrapped around her midriff too.

The police had learned, over the years, the most effective ways to obtain information from victims and witnesses during interviews. The first principle concerned dress code. Never wear anything that might distract the subject, such as stripes or vivid colours. DC Westmore was dressed appropriately, in a plain blue open-neck shirt beneath a navy V-neck jumper, black trousers and plain black shoes. Her shoulder-length fair hair was swept back from her face and cinched with a band. A simple silver choker was the only jewellery she was wearing.

The second principle was to put the victim or witness in the dominant position, to relax them, which was why the interviewee – Nicola Taylor – was on the sofa, while the DC was on the single chair.

Mirroring was a classic interview technique. If you mirrored everything that the subject did, sometimes it would put them at ease to such an extent that they began to mirror the interviewer. When that happened, the interviewer then had control and the victim would acquiesce, relating to the interviewer – and, in interview parlance, start to cough.

Grace jotted down occasional notes as Westmore, in her gentle Scouse accent, slowly and skilfully attempted to coax a response from the traumatized, silent woman. A high percentage of rape victims suffer immediate post-traumatic stress disorder, their agitated state limiting the time they are able to concentrate and focus. Westmore was intelligently making the best of this by following the guidelines to go to the most recent event first and then work backwards.

Over his years as a detective Grace had learned, from numerous interviewing courses he had attended, something that he was fond of telling team members: there is no such thing as a bad witness – only a bad interviewer.

But this DC seemed to know exactly what she was doing.

‘I know this must be very difficult for you to talk about, Nicola,’ she said. ‘But it would help me to understand what’s happened and really help in trying to find out who has done this to you. You don’t have to tell me today if you don’t want to.’

The woman stared ahead in silence, wringing her hands together, shaking.

Grace felt desperately sorry for her.

The SOLO began wringing her hands too. After some moments, she asked, ‘You were at a New Year’s Eve dinner at the Metropole with some friends, I understand?’

Silence.

Tears were rolling down the woman’s cheeks.

‘Is there anything at all you can tell me today?’

She shook her head suddenly.

‘OK. That’s not a problem,’ Claire Westmore said. She sat in silence for a short while, then she asked, ‘At this dinner, did you have very much to drink?’

The woman shook her head.

‘So you weren’t drunk?’

‘Why do you think I was drunk?’ she snapped back suddenly.

The SOLO smiled. ‘It’s one of those evenings when we all let our guard down a little. I don’t drink very much. But New Year’s Eve I tend to get wrecked! It’s the one time of year!’

Nicola Taylor looked down at her hands. ‘Is that what you think?’ she said quietly. ‘That I was wrecked?’

‘I’m here to help you. I’m not making any assumptions, Nicola.’

‘I was stone cold sober,’ she said bitterly.

‘OK.’

Grace was pleased to see the woman reacting. That was a positive sign.

‘I’m not judging you, Nicola. I’d just like to know what happened. I honestly do understand how difficult it is to speak about what you have been through and I want to help you in any way I can. I can only do that if I understand exactly what’s happened to you.’

A long silence.

Branson drank some of his Coke. Grace sipped his coffee.

‘We can end this chat whenever you want, Nicola. If you would rather we leave it until tomorrow, that’s fine. Or the next day. Whatever you feel is best. I just want to help you. That’s all I care about.’

Another long silence.

Then Nicola Taylor suddenly blurted out the word, ‘Shoes!’

‘Shoes?’

She fell silent again.

‘Do you like shoes, Nicola?’ the SOLO probed. When there was no response she said chattily, ‘Shoes are my big weakness. I was in New York before Christmas with my husband. I nearly bought some Fendi boots – they cost eight hundred and fifty dollars!’

‘Mine were Marc Jacobs,’ Nicola Taylor said, almost whispering.

‘Marc Jacobs? I love his shoes!’ she replied. ‘Were they taken with your clothes?’

Another long silence.

Then the woman said, ‘He made me do things with them.’

‘What kind of things? Try – try to tell me.’

Nicola Taylor started to cry again. Then, in between her sobs, she began talking in graphic detail, but slowly, with long periods of silence in between, as she tried to compose herself, and sometimes just plain let go, waves of nausea making her retch.

As they listened in the observation room, Glenn Branson turned to his colleague and winced.

Grace acknowledged him, feeling very uncomfortable. But as he listened now, he was thinking hard. Thinking back to that cold-case file on his office floor, which he had read through only very recently. Thinking back to 1997. Recalling dates. A pattern. An MO. Thinking about statements given by victims back then, some of which he had re-read not long ago.

That same wintry gust he had felt earlier was rippling through his veins again.