Jack rolled his eyes. ‘Do all defence lawyers think like you?’

Hoyle laughed. ‘Deep down, yes, but some are like you and cloak it in bullshit. All the stuff about protecting our freedoms? That is just crap, because it’s a dirty game, and you don’t pick your fight, your client picks it for you. It’s time for you to be honest with yourself now, and stop disguising your courtroom tales as freedom. It’s just gossip, tales over the garden fence, revelling in someone else’s downfall. God help us if the world is ever as bad as the papers make out.’

‘I can’t believe I’m having a debate about morals with a lawyer,’ Jack said.

Hoyle checked his watch and then winked, before flicking his cigarette stub onto the pavement outside. ‘You’re not,’ he said, with a grin. ‘You’ve been delayed. My client should be in his car by now, and well away from your camera lens.’

Jack sighed. Didn’t Hoyle ever stop playing the game?

‘You need to stop wasting your time in there,’ Hoyle said, pointing back up the court steps. ‘Go after a proper story.’

‘Give me one to think about.’

Hoyle smiled. ‘A good story always involves me,’ he said, and then patted Jack on the shoulder. ‘Next time, ask my client the questions, not me, because I’ll just protect my client every time,’ and then he set off, walking away from the court, a brown leather bag thrown over his shoulder.

Jack leaned against the door frame and watched him go. It was characters like Hoyle who made the courtroom a livelier place, made the day less tedious. And despite Hoyle’s brashness he knew Hoyle was right, he did need to kick-start his life again, instead of trying to get by on inquests and court stories.

Dolby had used the recession as an excuse to cut costs and streamline the paper, except that Jack knew it wasn’t just that. Newspapers were changing, with people going to the internet for the news, and so there was no longer the luxury of a cadre of staff reporters, with Jack providing the freelance stories. Dolby had just two full-time reporters left. He used freelance for the rest, and because there was always some eager new hack ready to provide the stories, Jack wrote whatever Dolby wanted. He hadn’t written anything of his own choosing for nearly a year now. It wasn’t why he went freelance, but he knew that his career was gone once Dolby looked elsewhere for material. He had thought about writing a book, but on the days he’d set aside for it, his fingers had just hovered over the keys and he’d written nothing.

Jack knew that the problem was deeper than just Dolby though. The court routine had become too comfortable, because going for the big stories had become too dangerous. Criminals were bad people, it came with the job description, but reporters didn’t come with the protection that police or lawyers enjoyed, because they weren’t players in the game. They were on the sidelines – observing, annoying, interfering. He was sick of the risk and had been hurt – badly – a couple of times.

Jack smiled ruefully as Hoyle disappeared from view, and then his mind drifted back to the murder scene. He thought about the victim from a few weeks earlier. The two deaths hadn’t been officially linked yet, but he ought to make the connection in his story, so that once it was confirmed, the story would be ready to run. An update from the first victim’s family would be a good way to start.

He glanced back up the court steps. There was nothing going on there, and so he walked back to the Stag, parked further along the road. It was time to concentrate on the murder story.

Chapter Seven

Laura chewed her lip as Carson approached the home of Don Roberts, a shiny redbrick detached house, with bright double-glazing and pillars under a small porch. A bay window jutted out towards the lawn. It wasn’t how she thought it would be. Joe had made Don Roberts out to be the local thug, and so she was expecting something a bit less suburban, although she did spot stone lions on either side of the front door, de rigueur for the criminal set. There was an Audi parked at the front, an RS8, black and sleek. Although Don’s house looked like the flashiest on the street, Laura guessed that he was still looked down on by the rest of the neighbourhood.

They’d come straight from the crime scene, and so they hadn’t had much time to plan what to say. When Carson looked at her, Laura nodded. She was ready.

A metal gate blocked the driveway, and it clinked loudly as she opened it. This was the part of the job she hated most, delivering bad news, knowing that whatever shade of normality was behind the door, it would soon be gone forever.

Carson took the lead, rapping loudly on the door. Laura noticed the lens of the CCTV camera in the shadow of the porch, and when the door opened, a woman appeared, her hair streaked blonde and pulled tight into a ponytail. The darker roots were showing through and there was a line of foundation around her face. She had a stud in her top lip and the pucker of lines around her mouth showed her as a heavy smoker.

‘Helen Roberts?’ Carson asked.

She nodded in response, her hand gripping the door jamb. Her stare was hard, as if she was used to dealing with the police at her doorstep, and Laura knew that they had been clocked straight away as that. But Laura sensed her uncertainty. Bad news or another pointless warrant?

Carson gave her a regret-filled smile. ‘Can we come in?’

‘Why?’ she said, the colour draining from her cheeks.

‘It really would be better if we came inside.’

‘Is it about Jane?’

Carson paused just long enough to give away the truth, and the woman’s eyes widened in shock.

She seemed to recover quickly, her default reaction to the police coming back, but still she couldn’t help swallowing hard when she asked, ‘Have you found her?’

Carson stepped towards her and let out a long, heavy sigh. ‘Did Jane have a butterfly tattoo on her wrist?’

At that, Mrs Roberts’ grip on the door slackened, and her eyes glazed over before she slumped to the floor.

Carson looked at Laura and then stepped forward to help her into the house.

Jack rooted through the newspapers he kept in his car to find the name of the first victim – Deborah Corley. He remembered her house, he had driven past it on the day she’d been found but had been beaten to the scoop by one of the employed writers. The newspapers were now strewn across the passenger seat, with pictures of Deborah and posed photographs of Deborah’s parents, looking tearful, a framed photograph of their daughter held on the mother’s knee.

The house was a large Victorian semi on the edge of Blackley, with a small square patch of flowers behind a low stone wall, the red brick of the house dark and covered in moss in places. A flower basket hung by the front door and the curtains in the white-framed sash windows were tied back neatly.

Jack stepped up to the front door. A woman watched from the house next door, and her look of disapproval said that she knew what he was doing: intruding. He steeled himself and turned away. He knew that her parents didn’t deserve the attention. He had the jump on the other media though, because he was on the spot. Blackley wasn’t a large town, and young women didn’t get murdered too often here. When the out-of-town press made the connection, this quiet crescent of driveways and two-car households would become busy with cameras.

He rang the doorbell.

There was a pause as the soft chimes echoed around the house, but then there was a twitch of a curtain, and when the door opened a few seconds later, a woman with a pale face and bags under her eyes looked out. Jack recognised her from the newspaper, although he could already see the weight dropping from her.