‘So he came back north and ended up in Blackley.’

‘In the same town as Shane’s real mother,’ Laura said. ‘Now that is too much of a coincidence. So if Peter Williams really is Shane Grix, we know why he is here, to be near his real mother.’

‘Hopefully he can tell us all about it in a minute,’ Carson said, as he turned onto a long straight road of terraced houses lined by old Fords and souped-up small cars, all smoothed out rear ends and tin-can exhausts. Carson scraped his wheels along the kerb outside an end-terrace. Laura jumped out and ran for the door, dirty white PVC. She heard Carson behind her.

‘Just go in,’ he said, puffing as he ran. ‘We’re not waiting for an invite.’

Laura reached for the handle, expecting it to be locked, but instead it swung open in front of her. There was no hallway, so that the door opened straight into a small square living room. She could see the kitchen behind, a square room of the same size.

‘Peter Williams?’ she shouted, but there was no response. She saw that the back door was closed, and so she guessed that he hadn’t run out through the yard.

The room in front of her was unremarkable. There was a flat screen television and cheap leather furniture, with a coffee table in the middle of the room, covered in old cups and flakes of rolling tobacco. There were no photographs on the wall, nothing to make it homely, just woodchip painted in cream.

The stairs ran out of the corner of the room, and she was about to head for them when she noticed a small cupboard built into the space under the stairs. She used her toe to open the door, and as it swung open she was surprised. She had expected old coats and a vacuum cleaner, but there was a computer on a small desk, along with a small blue chair, crammed into the space. There was no light.

Carson appeared on her shoulder. ‘It must get cosy in there,’ he said. ‘It must help him with the fantasy, to shut himself away, just the colours on the screen bouncing around the walls. We’ll get the computer unit to have a look, see if we can find his emails.’

‘Let’s try upstairs,’ she said.

Carson trailed her again, and as she climbed the stairs, she thought the house smelled musty and stale. It was the smell of beds that didn’t get changed too often, or carpets that had never felt the hum of a vacuum cleaner.

There were two bedrooms upstairs, one on either side of the stairs, along with a bathroom. Laura got a glimpse as she went past. It was old fashioned, with an avocado-coloured sink splashed by toothpaste and soap scum. There was only one toothbrush on the sill.

The rear bedroom was just a dumping ground, with bin liners filled with old clothes, some books piled up in one corner.

Laura backed out of the room. She wanted to see what was in the main bedroom. She stood in front of the door and gave it a push, letting the view inside slowly reveal itself. The curtains were open and the street light outside made the room bright.

The bedroom was like the nest of the house, simple and cheap, no frills, with old white bedding and chipped brown cupboards. There was an old coffee cup next to the bed.

‘No woman’s touch?’ Laura said.

Carson brushed past her and flicked the light switch as Laura went to a wardrobe opposite the bed and opened the doors. When she saw what was inside, she whistled.

‘What is it?’ Carson said.

‘Police uniforms,’ she said. ‘Yellow jackets, caps, full tunics, equipment belts.’

‘It would explain how he is able to convince them to talk to him,’ Carson said, coming up behind her. ‘That’s Abbott’s number,’ he pointed to the collar number on the jacket. ‘Abbott will get it for losing a uniform, but where is Williams?’

Then Laura’s phone rang.

Chapter Sixty-Four

‘Don Roberts has got him,’ Jack said, as he drove too quickly through the town centre.

‘What do you mean, got him?’

‘I’ve spoken to Emma, Shane’s birth mother. She saw Don and two of his men dragging Simon Abbott away.’

‘We don’t think it’s Simon Abbott,’ she said.

‘Why not?’

‘Because I’m in Shane’s home, looking at a wardrobe filled with Abbott’s uniforms. It looked like Shane used Abbott’s name as a cover when he spoke to Emma, so that he could hear her story. But Shane worked for the police as a driver.’

‘So they’ve got Shane?’

‘He’s not here, and so I’d guess so.’

‘How long have you known about Shane?’ Jack said.

‘What do you mean?’

He stopped speaking as he came to a junction. He wasn’t really sure what he was looking for. Emma had only given him a general description, because she couldn’t remember the street, just the area. So he had driven along rows of houses, the streets lined by cars, and now the bright pub lights were in front of him, glittering beneath the brooding shadow of the viaduct in the distance, the route for the trains that snaked through the hills and connected all the old cotton towns.

‘How many people have seen him today?’ Jack said.

‘Me, and Rachel,’ she said.

‘And how long have you known the full story?’

‘Minutes ago.’

‘So Don knew before you worked it out, and I can guess that you didn’t tell Don Roberts,’ Jack said. ‘So who else could have told him?’

Laura didn’t answer for a few seconds, and then she said, ‘I’ll speak later,’ before the phone went quiet.

Jack threw his phone onto the passenger seat and carried on with his drive through the town centre again, once more on the one-way loop, trying to spot a building that was different from the pubs, clubs and takeaways, peering through the groups of short-sleeve muscle and tight white skirts. The town centre petered out eventually into industrial units and derelict back streets, the shadows filled by women who traded themselves at night, their skirts high, small glittery bags slung over their shoulders.

He had driven two circuits already, and guessed that he’d been spotted by the police who looked out for kerb crawlers, but he kept on driving. Then he saw it: David Hoyle’s car.

Jack almost missed it. It was parked in the shadows of a high brick wall, away from the streetlights, but he spotted the chrome spokes, just catching enough of a gleam. As he drove towards it, his headlights caught a sign: DR Security.

The night went quiet when he turned off the engine.

‘Don’s got him,’ Laura said to Carson. Emma saw Don take him.

‘How would Don know?’

‘Rachel.’

Carson looked over, scowling. ‘What are you saying?’

‘She got nearer than I did. Really close. How else would Don find out?’

‘You need to be absolutely sure, McGanity, before you accuse her.’

‘It fits,’ she said. ‘Shane is snatched around the same time Rachel left hospital, after all this time looking for him. Bit of a coincidence, don’t you think? Once Don had a name and an occupation, it wouldn’t take him long to find him.’

‘Let’s go ask her,’ Carson said. ‘It’s on the way to Don’s house, and I’m being sent the wrong way by some pisshead related to the killer.’

Laura followed him outside and jumped into the car, and then she gripped the door handle as Carson accelerated away.

Laura watched the houses flash by, tall Victorian rows, with stone-framed bay windows and stained glass above the front doors, most divided up into bedsits and dole flats. Carson braked hard for a speed camera, the bright yellow box catching the glare from his headlight, making a small crowd of young men clustered by a lamppost look up startled. From the way they quickly walked separate ways, their hands back in their pockets, Laura knew that a street deal had just been thwarted, although there would be a reunion as soon as Carson was out of sight. Darkness brought out the night rats. A job for someone else on a different day.