‘Yes. If that’s okay? I’m amazed you called, and grateful, really grateful. And can I say sorry first, sorry for freaking you out? I can explain. Did they give you my note?’

‘Oh yes, the WPC was most insistent.’

‘I was so frustrated, leaving you the way we did. I had this horrible feeling he’d come back. I – I’m an insomniac anyway so I thought, well, why not pop round and keep an eye on your place? A spur of the moment thing really. Then I fell asleep in the car and had a nightmare. That must have been why I was shouting.’

Aidan cringed like a condemned Texan.

‘Right. So you shout in your sleep?’

‘Only at the moment.’

‘Great. Soon I’ll have maniacs queuing up at the front door. What were you planning to do to him?’

‘I just thought I’d shake him up a bit, you know, give him a fright. Make him think twice about doing it again.’

‘You don’t get it, do you?’ she said, her voice breaking in panicked exasperation, ‘that’s not going to work. That’ll just make him really angry. And then he’ll come back and do something awful to me.’

‘I won’t let that happen to you, Gabby. I promise.’

‘You can’t make that promise. He’ll just carry on doing what he likes.’

‘Like I said, Gabby, I suffer from insomnia. It’s no trouble to me to drive over and keep an eye on your place. I can just sit in the car, listen to the radio, even for a few nights until you sort something out.’

‘I don’t … why would you do that?’

‘Look, you live on my patch. It’s my duty to keep the people on my patch safe.’

I thought the next silence would never end. But I held my nerve.

‘I’m not sure it’s a good idea. I’ve got your number. If he turns up, I’ll call you.’

‘I hope you mean that.’

This silence lasted longer. I lost my nerve.

‘Okay, well, I guess I hope I don’t hear from you again then, Gabby,’ I said, as brightly as I could.

‘I hope not,’ she said blankly, hanging up.

Chapter 8

Wandsworth Common

Sunday, July 7; 10:15

A glorious morning deserved a stroll to the Common. On the way, I picked up a copy of the Sunday News. In the cool shade of a gnarled old oak, I settled down to Fintan’s latest journalistic handiwork.

‘Cops Hunt South London Ripper’, said the headline, ‘by Fintan Lynch, Deputy Crime Correspondent.’

The opening paragraph: ‘The maniac who slashed to death a twenty-three-year-old newlywed in her London flat earlier this week is targeting other women in the local area, police believe.’

A police source confirmed that, on the day of ‘Marion’s slaying’ – surely not the source’s phrase? – a nanny had been pestered by a stranger on the Common ‘less than a mile from the scene of Marion’s brutal murder’.

A day later, in nearby Clapham South, a woman had been accosted on her doorstep by a stranger. Her ‘would-be attacker’ tried to push her inside, only for the ‘quick-thinking victim’ to scream, forcing him to run away. I marvelled at the poetic licence of ‘would-be attacker’ and the logic that makes screaming a ‘quick-thinking’ response. Mind you, Marion hadn’t screamed: at least not loudly enough for anyone to hear. She kept her head when screaming it off might have saved her.

I shuddered. This development changed everything.

Could the same man have bundled Marion inside her front door, then marched her upstairs at knifepoint? The mail found next to her body seemed to torpedo this scenario – unless the letters had been planted afterwards. If there was a maniac like this on the loose, how long before he strikes again?

Descriptions of the suspect in the two ‘failed attacks’ tallied, resulting in the usual comedy photo-fit. If we found a simian male with a face wider than was long, with no forehead, a monobrow and tiny, malevolent eyes, then that was our man. If some guy out there really did look like this, then small wonder he’d been forced to opt for non-consensual romantic encounters.

Tellingly, the impeccably connected police source for this ‘exclusive’ didn’t explicitly say that detectives were linking Marion’s murder to these two incidents. The article simply concluded that Scotland Yard had declined to comment. The entire piece was clearly sensationalist, scaremongering bollocks; opportunist skulduggery of the basest kind. Another look at that photo-fit revealed a certain likeness to Fintan. God knows that fucker would do anything to stand up a story.

I suppose the Yard didn’t care, so long as the all-important Incident Room number was tagged on at the end. Sometimes, a single call from the public can save months of investigation, and other lives. But everything else in the article had to be a rip-roaring smokescreen, surely?

I was certain that the ‘Big Dog’ detectives would be sniffing through every aspect of Marion’s life, and that soon they would work out who wanted her dead, and why.

Thankfully, Marion’s vengeful spirit hadn’t come to me again since her car door slamming escapades the other night. And the more I thought about it, although I had been terrified, I don’t think she had actually meant me harm. She was trying to tell me something. The only thing I could think of were doors – the door she’d slammed in my flat and the car door. But what did that mean?

I doubted if the Big Dogs would entertain any of this. I doubted any sane person would entertain the notion that Marion was giving me clues to her killer from beyond the grave. So what was I to do with this information? And why had she not come to me in the last five days?

Suddenly everything around me rustled. A breeze as cold as steel snaked around my neck and shoulders, forcing them to roll together. A daytime moon winked briefly between skidding incoming clouds. Whatever Marion had in store for me would come, as sure as rain and night and death.

Chapter 9

Salcott Road, South London

Sunday, July 7, 1991; 22:00

That night, I took up my usual position at the alleyway on Salcott Road, more scared of an encounter with Gabby than Dom Rogan.

As I did so, I realised one other thing connected Marion’s two visits: on both those days I had attended her murder scene. Since then, she’d been a no-show. I could have tested this theory right then – Sangora Road was just five minutes’ walk away – but I had a stalker to stalk.

It had been four days since Dom’s incursion into Gabby’s back garden. On each of those subsequent nights, I’d waited for him here but he’d failed to show – or at least, I hadn’t seen him. I was worried that he’d clocked me, and was now biding his time until I gave up. We both knew I couldn’t keep coming here indefinitely.

Although he’d no previous convictions, I had been able to glean all of Dom’s personal details from the police computer. I thought about turning up at Bank of America in uniform and demanding to see him. When dealing with the middle classes, embarrassment can be our most powerful weapon. But to do this, I’d have to get an official sanction and, of course, write a report.

I much preferred keeping Dom unofficial business. With him in Gabby’s back garden, face down in the dirt, my arm around his throat, I could much better explain my plans to hit him with charges of trespass, resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer if he ever showed up again. Another breach and I’d make it official: magistrates would give him two years’ probation at the very least. Break that and I’d land him in jail quicker than he could say: ‘I want to call my family lawyer.’ I felt certain that the very real threat of prison would straighten him out, no matter how much he might squeal about his rights and his well-connected pals.

I felt uncomfortable bending the rules, but what else could I do?

As it was Sunday night, the street’s houselights sparked out even earlier. If New York is the city that never sleeps, London likes an early night.