Simone lay on her front on the bathroom floor, starting to shift and moan. Erika yanked the red cord hard again, and it snapped off. She sat on Simone’s legs, pinned her hands behind her back and started to wind the red cord tight around her wrists.

‘I’m arresting you, Simone,’ Erika said breathlessly, struggling to speak, ‘for the murders of Gregory Munro, Jack Hart, Stephen Linley and Keith Hardy… And the assault and attempted murder of a police officer. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention, when questioned, something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’

She slumped back, sitting on Simone’s legs and holding on tight to her bound wrists. Her face was throbbing where she’d been punched. As her breathing slowed down, she heard the distant wail of sirens.

84

It was raining lightly over the back garden, and the early morning sky hung grey. Moss and Peterson huddled with Erika in the doorway of her patio window, eating croissants and drinking coffee.

The newspapers were strewn on the floor around them.

‘Now this is what I call a proper British summer: stuck indoors staring out at the rain and pretending to have fun,’ said Moss. It was the first time she and Peterson had seen Erika since Simone had been arrested four days before. ‘That last bit was a joke,’ she added.

‘Thanks for bringing all this over,’ said Erika, lifting up her takeaway cup of coffee.

‘We’re just glad you’re okay, boss,’ said Peterson, bumping his cup against hers.

‘I got punched. I’ve been through worse,’ said Erika.

‘You’ve got quite a shiner, though,’ said Moss, looking at the large purple bruise decorating Erika’s eye and cheek.

‘I’ve never felt more disturbed or conflicted about a killer,’ said Erika. ‘When they took her off on the stretcher, she called for me… Her eyes were full of fear. She said she wanted me to go in the ambulance with her and hold her hand. And I nearly did. Crazy…’

They sipped their coffee.

‘Well, I’m glad you didn’t, boss,’ said Moss. ‘You remember what happened at the end of The Silence of the Lambs? Those people who got in the ambulance with Hannibal Lecter.’

Peterson gave her a look.

‘What? I’m trying to lighten the mood here,’ said Moss.

Erika smiled.

‘It’s like they’re all competing for a name to give Simone Matthews,’ said Peterson, grabbing one of the newspapers off the floor. ‘The Angel of Death… The Night Stalker… The Night Owl’.

‘What was angelic about her?’ asked Moss, taking a gulp of coffee.

‘The Sun has her pictured in her nurse’s uniform,’ replied Peterson, holding up a picture of Simone posing with a group of nurses in a staff kitchen. The nurses at the front were holding a giant cheque for three hundred pounds, money they had raised for Children in Need. Simone was to the left of the group, grinning and holding the cheque. ‘The NHS Trust is now panicking that she’s been bumping off patients, terrified of a lawsuit, I’ve no doubt.’

‘I don’t think she did bump any patients off. She was focused on who she wanted to kill,’ said Erika. She picked up the Daily Express and looked at the article that had disturbed her most. It was Jack Hart’s original account of Simone’s mother, reproduced with details of Simone’s murder spree.

Simone had been brought up in Catford, in a grotty top-floor flat. Her mother, also called Simone, had been a prostitute and drug addict. After several concerned phone calls from neighbours, police had broken in to find that Simone’s mother had been keeping her daughter tied to the radiator in the bathroom. The young Jack Hart had been with the police when they’d broken in. The photo that broke Erika’s heart was of a small, hollow-cheeked girl with bare feet, wearing what looked like a grubby pillowcase. One of her thin arms was tied to a grotty, yellowing radiator and she was looking up at the camera with large, confused eyes.

‘She didn’t have a chance, did she? She just wanted to be loved… To have someone to love.’

‘Come on, boss, you’ll start me off again,’ said Moss, grabbing Erika’s hand. Peterson reached into his pocket and pulled out a pack of tissues, handing her one.

‘You always have tissues,’ said Erika, wiping her eyes.

‘He just does it so he can chat up tearful women,’ said Moss.

Peterson rolled his eyes and grinned.

‘Anyway,’ said Erika, recovering her composure, ‘it’s not all bad. You got Gary Wilmslow…’