Cutting to the chase was the best option for personal survival, Barbara concluded, so she went directly to the subject of the cat. She’d been about to leave the building, she said, when she’d heard the sound of an animal in distress. She wondered if Morag ought to know about that. It certainly sounded-to her admittedly unschooled ears since she’d never owned anything more than a gerbil-serious. A Siamese cat perhaps, she added helpfully. This would be in flat number 5.

“That’s Mandy,” Morag McDermott told her promptly. “Esther’s cat. She’s on holiday. I mean Esther, of course, not the cat. She’ll quiet soon enough when Esther’s boy comes to feed her. There’s nothing for you to worry about.”

Worry for the animal was the last thing on Barbara’s mind, but she went with the flow of the conversation. She needed to get inside that flat, and she didn’t want to wait for a warrant to do it. Mandy sounded dead frantic, she told the building manager solemnly. True, she didn’t know much about felines, but she thought the situation wanted checking into. And by the way, Berkeley Pears had told her that cats weren’t allowed in the building. Had he been playing fast and loose with the truth?

“That man will say anything,” Morag replied. “Of course cats are allowed in the building. Cats, fish, and birds.”

“But not dogs?”

“He knew that before he moved in, Constable.”

Barbara nodded. Yes, well, people and their animals…It took all kinds, didn’t it? She brought Morag round to flat number 5 once again. “This cat…Mandy? She sounds…well, is there any chance the son hasn’t come round to feed her for a while? Have you seen him here? Entering or leaving?”

Morag thought about this, drawing the neck of her dressing gown more tightly closed at her throat. She admitted that she hadn’t exactly seen the son in the vicinity lately, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t been there. He was completely devoted to his mum. Everyone should have such a son.

Nonetheless…Barbara offered a smile she hoped was ingratiating. Perhaps they ought to have a look…? For the sake of the cat? Something could have happened to prevent the son from coming round, couldn’t it? Car crash, heart attack, kidnap by aliens…?

At least one of Barbara’s suggestions seemed to work because Morag nodded thoughtfully and said, “Yes, perhaps we ought to see…” before she went over to a corner cupboard and opened it to reveal the back of its door covered with hooks from which keys dangled.

Still attired in her dressing gown, Morag led the way to flat number 5. There was silence behind the door and for a moment Barbara thought that her ruse to get inside was going to fail. But as Morag said, “I don’t actually hear-” Mandy howled cooperatively once more. With an “Oh, my dear,” the building manager hastily unlocked the door and opened it. The cat escaped like a lag given an unexpected opportunity. She melted round the corner of the corridor, going for the stairs and doubtless heading for the freedom of the front door, which the Moppits still had propped open.

This would not do. Morag took off after her. Barbara stepped inside the flat.

The first thing she noted was the overpowering smell of urine. Cat urine, she assumed. No one had changed the poor creature’s litter for days. The windows were closed and the curtains drawn over them, which greatly exacerbated the matter. It was no wonder the cat had bolted for the outdoors. Anything to get a breath of fresh air.

Barbara closed the door despite the odour, the better to give herself warning when Morag returned and would have to insert the key in the lock another time. That done, the flat was even gloomier, so she opened the curtains and saw that flat number 5, like that of Berkeley Pears, faced the woods at the back of the property.

She turned from the window and surveyed the room. The furniture came to her straight out of the sixties: vinyl sofa and chairs, side tables once called Danish modern, coy figurines in the shape of animals with anthropomorphic expressions on their faces. Bowls of potpourri-ostensibly attempting to rid the air of the foetid odour of cat-sat on lacy antimacassars that were now being used as mats. Barbara saw those last with a rush of happiness: Kimmo Thorne’s loincloth in St. George’s Gardens. Things were definitely looking up.

She prowled round for signs of recent occupation-of deadly occupation-and she found the first of them in the kitchen: one plate, one fork, one glass in the sink.

Did you feed him something before you raped him then, you bugger? Or did you have a bit of sustenance yourself while the kid entertained you with one more magic trick which you applauded and for which you told him you had a very nice reward? Come over closer to me, Davey my lad. God, but you’re a lovely boy. Did anyone ever tell you that? No? Why not? It’s plain to see.

On a floor in the corner, the cat’s dry food spilled out of a container and a large bowl next to it was empty of water. Using a dishcloth to hold it by its edges, Barbara carried this to the sink and filled it. Wasn’t the cat’s fault, she told herself. No point in letting it suffer any longer. And suffer Mandy had done since the night of Davey Benton’s murder. There was no way in hell that the killer could have afforded to return to this place once Davey was dead, not with the street crawling with cops intent upon finding a witness.

She went from the kitchen back into the sitting room, looking for signs. He’d have raped and strangled Davey Benton somewhere in here, but the rest he would have done when he got the body into the woods.

She went to the bedroom, where, as she had done in the sitting room, she opened the curtains and turned back to survey the scene illuminated by the fast-fading daylight. A bed with covers and counterpane in place; side table with an old-fashioned wind-up alarm clock and lamp; chest of drawers with two framed photos sitting on top.

It all looked so ordinary, save for one detail: The clothes-cupboard door hung partially open. Inside, Barbara could see a flowery dressing gown askew on a hanger. She took it out. The belt was missing.

Let me show you how to do a knot trick, he’d said, and Barbara could hear his coaxing voice. It’s the only trick that I know, Davey, and believe me, it’ll make your mates stand up and take notice when they see how easily you can escape even if they tie your hands behind your back. Here. You tie me first. See how it works? Now I’ll tie you.

Something like that, she thought. Something like that. He had done it that way. And then bent the boy over the bed. No shouting, Davey. No wiggling about. Okay. All right. Don’t panic, lad. I’ll untie your hands. But no trying to get away from me now because…God damn, you scratched me, Davey. You bloody well scratched me and now I’ll have to…I told you not to make a sound, didn’t I? Didn’t I, Davey? Didn’t I, you miserable filthy little sod?

Or maybe he had used handcuffs on the boy. Glow-in-the-dark handcuffs just like those that Barry Minshall had given Davey. Or maybe he hadn’t needed to restrain him at all or hadn’t thought to restrain him because Davey had been so much smaller than the rest of the boys and there had, after all, been no mark of restraints on his wrists, not like the others…

Which gave Barbara pause. Which made her admit how desperately she wanted this place on Wood Lane to be the answer. Which told her she was on dangerous ground, weaving place to fit circumstance in the worst kind of reckless police work, of the sort that landed innocent people in prison because the cops were just so bloody tired and so anxious to get home for supper one night in ten because their wives were complaining and their kids were misbehaving and some serious sorting needed to be done and why did you even marry me, Frank or John or Dick, if you meant to be gone day and night for months on end…